I listen to audio books when I drive sometimes, and I typically have an interesting list of books. One of my favorites is Chris Guillebeau’s $100 Startup. If you haven’t read or listened to it, and you’re a small business owner, I highly recommend that you do. It’s chock full of great stories, and inspiration about the business, from the metrics to stuff that just plain works. It also condenses plenty of marketing and other side knowledge into a concise package, without the fluff that usually accompanies it.
The ending is especially interesting to me as it deals with some of the deeper business aspects that one encounters after time within the business. A lot of the book emphasizes how you can create a business with a simple model-find a customer willing to pay for an opportunity or product and create it to sell it and get paid. But the aspects of why you want to do that, or the people that actually do that are more intriguing to me. As a small business owner for my entire career so far, I’ve found myself in many different situations in trying the businesses that I’ve tried and types so far. But the question of what you want to do, or why you want to do something is also so intriguing as a matter of philosophy itself. Many interviews said that the business was a way to maintain the lifestyle of what the people actually wanted to do-a snowboarder creating lessons and then expanding to video to teach while he could still ride during the day. Or people who loved to travel creating a way to sell products while they traveled in order to maintain the lifestyle that they love.
It’s a rich and romantic idea-one that many people fall in love with right off the bat. The ability to have freedom, in virtually the most important aspect of your life. And it’s most likely why so many people attempt to start a business themselves. As I listened, it occurred to me how many people truly get that wrong, however. Many people look at businesses or products and say “I can do that myself”. That’s true of probably everyone, and I’ve been guilty of that train of thought more than once. But it’s never about the ability to actually create the products as it is about the aspect of finding customers, or the actual “business” part of making money. He does mention this in his book, so again, please go read it. And within that thought of “I can do that myself” they launch themselves into the project only to realize how much harder it is to actually make it a full time business making enough money to be successful. Or even ruining the love you once had for the thing you started a business for because it was difficult to actually focus on that product instead of the act of marketing or making money.
Sun Tzu core philosophy is “Know Thyself”. GI Joes says “Knowing is Half the Battle”.
I often tell my children that life is full of rich experiences, so the more that you have, the better and well rounded you are. Like a true person of the renaissance, having those rich experiences lets you know who you are and how you behave in the face of the challenges. Many people approach business with the sense that they will take over the world or make a change in the way it’s done. It is often hubris that comes with failure that settles the senses. And that in itself is the reason that some fail. It was refreshing to see some of the stories that basically said, “I’m happy with my lot”. It’s not Jeff Bezos level of money, but it is what success is to them that makes it successful. “If you’re not growing, you’re dying” is an old fashioned way of saying that there’s never enough. And I mention Bezos so specifically because he’s now the embodiment of the growing so large that he has almost no more room to grow. He HAS to take over other industries, and simply can because he can afford to lose so much it pushes the race to the bottom instead of enrichment. The people in the stories are more interested in the enrichment of themselves. And whether or not that’s their own personal philosophy or just a way of life for them, it does also help to show how the most important things are the more enriching and simplest to accomplish.
It sounds more like a way of life than it does a business and in many cases it probably is. Being an entrepreneur is not for the faint of heart. It often takes one down a darker path in life if they let it overwhelm them, or they bind too close to the source instead of themselves. Again, I don’t know if Jeff Bezos foresaw himself becoming such a titan of industry and influence on the markets of what e-commerce has become, but I’m also sure that he may not have predicted himself grappling with the morality and concepts of keeping people working during a pandemic in order to increase a bottom line or trying to discredit those protesting for safer working conditions. I’m not saying it’s evil, per se, but like another philosopher, having the ends justify the means is a stark contrast when it comes to business versus people’s lives or livelihoods.
There is a happy meeting between the two. Nobody has to live like a hippy or not have a plan, and nobody needs to be a tyrant providing his own currency to modern day serfs. It’s a personal goal, and a achievable goal between being happy, being happy with what you have, and being happy with the ability to have something to shoot for. I often argue with my wife that even in philosophy-the Buddha, whatever sources of conscience you prefer, there’s an essential need to for imbalance. People need the imbalance for drive, they need the source of direction, the essence to achieve more. Sometimes, getting shoved in a locker is necessary to show that one can rise above. It’s not often, of course, and it’s not always necessary, but in the society that we live in today, it’s also part of that driving motivation, and it’s also part of the over-drive that makes the worst decisions sometimes as well. Not having that, or having everything that you want often leads to a worse fall than the climb that one attempts to have from the bottom.
Again the life of an entrepreneur is not for the faint of heart. You learn so much about the business, people, money and most of all yourself. And again, the exposure of all of that laid bare in the face of success leads people down many different roads they’re not prepared for when they begin the journey. I would actually liken it most likely to the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. A long journey leads to the introspection of life and the realization of simpler and happier times at the expense of all of that legacy, and yet it is still necessary for the accomplishments-or what’s the most important to one’s self.
So after you find yourself, find out what makes you happy and what you can live with. And once you realize those goals, you’ll find yourself at the convergence of where business and life can truly meet, which is what those who find themselves satisfied with their career and life truly are. And when times are lucky you will be extra happy, just as much as times are lean, and you still have the ability to survive with what you like to do. The ability to adjust and readjust one’s self is probably the most important aspect beyond finding that happiness. Roll with the punches and continue to grow and you’ll never be disappointed.