I’m about to share with you the common thread that ties
together all successful entrepreneurs. This single trait
launched the businesses of Microsoft, Intel, Hershey, JP
Morgan, Amazon.com, Nike and so many others. It’s not
anything you’ll be taught in Business School, it has nothing
to do with accounting, and it doesn’t even have anything to
do with what you’re selling or how you’re selling it. I’ll
sum it up in two words:
GET STARTED!
That’s it! It’s laughable at first, but the more you
think about it, the more it makes sense. It’s the missing
“million dollar” idea, hiding in plain sight. We hear
variations of this all the time: A journey of a thousand
miles begins with a single step.
Think back to your first writing classes in school. How
were we taught to write a paper? First we start with a basic
outline – that’s our money-making idea, whatever it may be.
Next, we make a rough draft – that’s right, we start working
on something that we know for a fact will be imperfect.
Finally, we use our rough-draft as a basis to begin
revisions, eventually ending up with a final draft, the
“perfect” version.
Planning for tomorrow is a sound business strategy. It’s
good to spend time thinking about the future, and how to
handle the challenges it will bring. But, if we want to
succeed, we must create the future by taking action today.
We can’t possibly predict everything that might happen once
we start doing business. Microsoft started out selling
programming software. After a few years, an opportunity
presented itself to sell a computer Operating System to IBM,
and they took it. The result was MS-DOS (which they didn’t
even create themselves, they bought it from someone else
when they saw how much money they could make!), followed by
Windows; quite possibly one of the most lucrative products
ever. If Bill Gates and Paul Allen, the founders of
Microsoft, had sat on the sidelines of the growing computer
industry thinking “programming software is an OK idea, but
it’s not perfect, there really isn’t a big enough market for
it…we need something better”, would they be where they are
today? Would IBM have given them that golden opportunity?
Not likely.
Did Michelangelo's sculpture of David emerge from a
single tap of a chisel upon a block of marble? No, it took
Michelangelo over 3 years of effort to release his
masterpiece from the stone, one tiny chip of marble at a
time. It probably wasn’t very pretty after only 1 month, or
even a year. But years of careful improvement resulted in a
classic work of art.
I hope I’ve made my point. Do something. Do anything! If
you do something, and the result isn’t what you wanted,
what’s the worst that could happen? You either have
something to improve upon, or you have a very good idea of
an approach that doesn’t work (think of it as addition by
subtraction…the process of elimination). Either way, you’re
one step closer to success than you were before you started.
Go for it! Give it a shot! Your financial success is
waiting for you, go and get it! Get Started Today!
Good Luck!
Jeff Watt
