Yes – You! You are a Small Business Guru. Well, maybe not yet, but you are certainly on the path!
Every successful business and every single business guru starts out with one person having one idea that inspires them to do one thing to grow their idea into something more. The idea is a catalyst, which creates a spark of inspiration. Voila! You are on the path to enlightenment through your small business.
Perhaps inspiration compels you to begin online searches into starting a small business; maybe you are sharing your ideas with a trustworthy individual; maybe you call financial institutions regarding loans, financing, grants and investors; your parents, or someone else you know who believes in you, and will hopefully say the words: “You can do this!”
Or, maybe this is all too much, and the couch, a bag of chips and a good movie calls you! “I didn’t really want to work that hard, anyway” you say, just as the movie is about to begin. “I’m better off just waiting it out, retiring as soon as I can.”
What Ifs and Yes Buts
Minds begin to churn out ideas, possibilities, potentials, as well as problems, practicality, and dilemmas. What if’s, to what’s impossible. From “this is going to be a huge success!” To: “There Ain’t No Way.” Yes, Buts, pop up all over the place!
Already, you are most likely in the midst of a myriad of dilemmas. Depending on how you perceive yourself, and the degree to which you trust that you can trust yourself, you either will ignore and deny your inspiration, or you may begin to put a bit of action behind your ideas. You are either taking the leap into allowing your imagination to play, or you wait until sometime down the road when you think it might be more possible. This is a dilemma and a choice-point. “To start, or not to start – that is the question.”
There are so many questions that can create overwhelm, and shut down any possibility of getting your feet on the ground with this project: What, When, Who, Where, and, How? Basements, garages, spare bedrooms; part time, spare time, full time; profit, non-profit, for-profit; sole-proprietor, partnership; employees, contracting out, and the list goes on! ARGHHHHHH!!!!
I know that if you are reading these words, you are already considering how to do what to do, solely by you!
Playing By the Book
There is evidence that those who play by the book – get a college education, follow the ABC’s of Successful Business, do all the right things … have great success. There is also a huge amount of evidence, which indicates that people who never even looked at a book, who never finished high school, and who started their business with $4.00 in their pocket – making choices solely based on their intuition, also have enormous success.
We know people with Graduate Degrees in high finance who plummet in their career, as well as those who never finished school. It’s not about education, it’s not about finance, it’s not about status, power, race, color or creed.
Success is about one’s passion, dedication and willingness to follow through in service to their convictions. It’s about the heart and soul of any individual who is inspired to take what they do seriously enough to choose to create a business of offering services or products – if that’s what they are inspired to do.
There are millions of people who sing, paint, dance, create and invent, support and serve, because it’s what they love to do. They have no interest in turning their hobby or volunteer efforts into a career of any sort. This is good to know. They do what they do because they love to do it – it’s fun!
There are millions of people that desire to turn their hobbies into a career – either working for other people or striking out on their own – starting from scratch, building their empire one stone at a time. Why? Why not? It’s fun!
A few years ago, I began a video series on You Tube called Dilemmas of a Small Business Guru. I interviewed everyday people who started a business – some within the past year, some decades ago. The intention of this series of videos and a proposed book, was, and still is, to empower you to think for yourself – inevitably deferring to no one regarding the direction and the unfolding of your business.
Most of us – including me – think that if we do it right, get everything in place, we won’t face failure or disappointments. We will hit our stride our first day in our new little office and won’t be looking back.
No sir!!
My work developing my own company – The Paradigm Shifts and coaching individuals and groups in developing theirs, has taught me that the every day dilemmas that are part and parcel to every single person entering into a business practice of their own are the necessary challenges that grow us into our fullest expression of self – into the fulfillment of your self and your dreams. To begin a new adventure in business requires you to be exposed to one dilemma, after another, until you no longer need those challenges as learning tools!
This hopefully will empower you to ask yourself questions – what’s stopping me from choosing to step into my dream? Or, what’s stopping me from hiring a coach or thinking partner, a marketing expert, who will empower and support me in creating the business that I want to create – just the way I want it!
You might be saying – “It can’t be done. No one gets to have it the way they want.” The truth is, and I know you’ve heard this many times: those who say they can’t, will never give themselves the opportunity to even try to have what they want. They allow their limiting beliefs and their fears to dictate what’s possible and what’s impossible.
This is one of the first dilemmas each individual faces as they consider starting their journey to being a small business guru: “Is it possible for me to be successful? Am I willing to face certain obstacles? Do I trust myself enough to start the journey, regardless of how it might turn out?”
Why Businesses Fail
8 out of 10 businesses fail these days. You can look up the top 10 reasons why businesses fail, and what you will find is that, at the beginning, the founder of the business did not focus on the underlying foundations and principles of their own life, and their own truths. They were:
- Unwilling to lay down a clear, defining vision – why they were doing what they were doing.
- Not clear on their personal and professional values.
- Did not walk their talk.
- Unwilling to get the kind of support that would guarantee them success.
- Fudging their integrity for the bottom line.
Whatever it is you are doing for love or money, it is serving a higher cause or value. And that higher value, more likely than not, is serving even a higher value.
Distinguishing your absolute highest value, your highest truth and the highest contribution you are serving inspires you every day to live into that.
It took me six years to find my own highest truth – My vision statement says it all: The fulfillment of the human spirit through the empowerment of every individual on the planet. This statement inspires me to get me up in the morning, and it inspires me to live into the practice of fulfilling the human spirit – mine, and others. Am I completely successful at living into this vision? No. However, I’m compelled to keep at it.
Dilemmas of a Small Business Guru will empower you to explore what it is that is your highest values, and to discover conflicting beliefs and values that undermine your unlimited potentiality.
Watch for the videos and podcasts Dilemmas of a Small Business Guru. You will be introduced to people like you, who are running their own business and facing all sorts of dilemmas that will be familiar to you!
Be dogged with your dreams. If you aren’t, they won’t have a chance in Hell to making it into the phenomenal contribution to the planet that they truly intend to be.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr. Rosie Kuhn
Dr. Rosie Kuhn, author of the popular ‘Self-Empowerment 101’ and founder of The Paradigm Shifts Coaching Group, is the preeminent Thought Leader in the field of transformational coaching, coach training and leadership development.
Rosie specializes in identifying and transforming belief systems that hold us back in business and in life. She empowers individuals, executives and organizations to fearlessly embrace transformation and realize previously untapped potential. Find her online at theparadigmshifts.com.