Recently, my wife and I embarked on our annual vacation- a road trip.  We started doing trips on our motorcycle because traveling this way can be very economical while experiencing more of the journey as opposed to the end destination.  This year, we decided to see as much of the outlying areas of California as we could in a week.

So, several months ago, we began the planning process: when would we leave; which route would we take; what would we visit and where would we lodge for the night.  We also considered what we could carry and what we would need in case of unforeseen situations.  If you’ve ever traveled via motorcycle, you know that the only thing worse than getting rained on, is running out of gas!  We made sure our itinerary and provisions prevented these 2 things from derailing our adventure.

The trip was perfect!  From LA, we went through the Mohave Desert, up to Lake Tahoe and made a brief pit-stop in Reno.  From Reno, we headed west across California to Napa Valley, down to Santa Cruz and over to the coast.  Since we didn’t stay or drive through any major cities, we enjoyed a continuous flow of the state’s natural landscapes and small communities along the way.  It gave us both a sense of how others experience life in a state where geography and economics can border on the extremes.

Riding a motorcycle for 8 or 9 hours a day gives you a lot of time to think.  If your trip is well planned and you prepare for every circumstance, all you have left to do is enjoy the ride.  And this ride was all about the journey.  We had only ‘stops’ to make throughout our time on the road; no destinations.  So as I was navigating the long straight-aways of the Mohave Desert and the twists and turns of the pacific coast highway around Big Sur, I started to think about how similar this experience was to running a small business.

As a small business owner, you tend to start your business because you have something you want to pursue.  Something that evokes the desire to achieve; something you feel is the direction you must take on your journey to entrepreneurial success.  These early musings may last for several years or be the product of a disruption in your current life that propels you to take action. 

Once you begin your journey, you will undoubtedly face opportunities as well as challenges.  Being prepared for both can insure you sustain the confidence and commitment to stay on course.  There will be times when the journey itself is so difficult, that it will be hard to keep the original purpose of your trip in mind.  It’s at this very point where growth, awareness and breakthroughs can happen. 

If you are planning a new business or career change that will launch you on a new journey, it’s helpful to keep the following in mind:

1.                  Clearly define the reason for your journey.  Journeys (business, career, life) can be initiated for many reasons but the ones that have purpose or defined meanings are the ones that will most likely be successful.  The purpose of our trip was to experience the rural and wilderness aspects of California.

2.                  Map out your route.  Know where you plan to go, how you expect to get there and what you’ll need along the way.  In business, preparing your start with enough financial support is critical.  Understanding your strengths and weaknesses is also necessary.  Developing milestones that will help measure your progress is critical to realizing growth and progression along the way.

3.                  Anticipate obstacles.  Our first trip ending abruptly when we encountered mechanical problems and had to be towed to a strange town for repairs.  Had we obtained the proper road assistance plan in advance, we would have saved a tremendous amount of time and money getting home.  ‘Things’ happen.  Be prepared by understanding what could go wrong and have solutions to overcome them quickly and efficiently if they do.

4.                  Schedule stops.  Riding a motorcycle 400 miles each day requires stopping to rest and re-energize.  Running a business requires the same.  A journey of 18 hour days is sure to end in disappointment.  Take the time to review where you are and evaluate how the journey is going so your energy and awareness remain sharp.

5.                  Make the most out of your ride.  Enjoy each phase of your business and learn from the victories as well as the set backs.   Take the time to recognize the people who have helped you and devote some of your own expertise to those who need help. 

The best part of a well planned journey is the feeling of certainty that you will reach your goal.  If you have a business, its knowing that at some point, the things you want from your business will be realized.  Having the confidence that you can and will be successful makes the journey that much more enriching and rewarding.  And when it’s over, you’ll never have to say “I wish….”

The question now for many is how to reclaim momentum in order to recapture lost gains and to once again enjoy prosperous times.  Below, I offer elements for plan for reclaiming momentum.  What are you doing?

#1 - Liberate Yourself from the Traditional Definition of a Job. 

The concepts of stable employment, career, corporate ladder and retirement are obsolete.  If you approach your work as a daily routine, you will find yourself on the outside looking in and risk the unemployment lines.  The only things that matter today are SERVICE and VALUE.  You must constantly think of how you can serve an employer or a client-base.  And your service must provide real value.  If these are your priorities, opportunities will transcend your employer and there will always be opportunities regardless of the economy. 

#2 – Define Your Goals

It has been said that “a rising tide floats all boats”.  Well the tide is out and if you don’t move you will be grounded.  You cannot reclaim momentum if your boat is stuck in the mud.  Staying afloat requires action and effort.  However, it also requires that you are moving in the right direction.  The wrong move can be just as dangerous as not moving at all.  Making the right decisions requires that you know where you want to go.  And for this, you need to understand your priorities and needs:  money, family, entertainment, community, etc.  Be thoughtful and write down your decisions!

#3 – Educate Yourself by Reallocating Your Entertainment Time

Americans spend huge amounts of time entertaining themselves and very little time educating, especially adults.  If you have any hope of swimming against the current you must enrich your brain.  Take half of your entertainment time and devote it to education.  Cut out American Idol and CSI and watch the news on PBS.  Trade in the Tom Clancy or Nora Roberts for a good business or philosophy book.  Give up a ballgame or two and go to a seminar on business, health, communication or family matters.

#4 – Stay Healthy

You can’t do much if you are not healthy.  The vast majority of our country’s health issues are preventable through lifestyle choices.  Cut out the crappy food and start exercising.  Just a little bit, makes a huge difference.  Because it is very hard to work against the tide if you are in a hospital bed or six feet under. 

These are some of the elements in my strategy, what are you doing?  How are you going to reclaim your momentum?

            I was president of a venture capital firm for seven years. The VC firm was primarily funded by Ewing Kauffman, the billionaire owner of the Kansas City Royals, founder of Marion Labs and founder of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation - an organization dedicated to fostering entrepreneurship. Here are “11” principles from the “CEO 50” that we developed for starting and growing a balanced business.

 The money pie. Don’t worry about the size of your slice. Your job is to make sure everyone has a slice and then to focus on making the pie bigger.

 Education.  From time to time, have your staff take a class at a local college. It will stimulate new thinking. Our minds, just like our stomachs, need some new foods periodically. Feed both. Make a list of things you would like to do, then take a class in one of them. You grow by your decisions and your actions; you atrophy by indecision and inaction.

 Encourage all. Become an encourager in your business. Forget the petty jealousies, perceived sleights’ and rise above everyone’s imperfections, including your own. The high road is the road less taken; it is clearly steeper, but it has the best view. Encourage your partners to be the best they can be, and to play the hand they are dealt.

 Time. Don’t waste it.  It is an indeterminate gift. You do not know how much you are given. “Tempus fugit” is not a random Latin phrase with no basis in fact. Do work on those things you can control. The future always arrives.  I founded a VC funded business more than 30 years ago with the initials EDC, “Every Day Counts.” We won awards from Fortune and Business Week magazines. The initials still resonate.

 Responsibility. Take it. It’s your business. Once you are past 12, you need to own your failures; you already take full credit for your successes. There is no one in your way, but you.

 Pride. Get rid of it. It’s useless. It gets in the way of success. It sucks the life out of you because it can never be satisfied. Pride has an insatiable appetite for wanting things that are destructive. Pride generally originates from a personal success that we have given ourselves too much individual credit for. It was really just a lucky bounce not a great shot. And if we are taller and have seen more, it is because we stood on someone else’s shoulders.

 Spirituality. Find it. It takes some faith. Listen, when you are alone and quiet, and you will hear the answer.

 Thank you. Thank someone every day. It will make your day better. You say you are too busy. Nonsense! You have time. It takes about a minute. Do not kid yourself; you have plenty of people to thank. When was the last time you took the time to write an employee a thank you card? Not for a birthday, but just a simple thank you. If you write one thank you card a day, I guarantee you; your life will change in a month. You will feel better.

 No one appreciates your efforts to build the business. Forget it. Who do you appreciate? Do you tell them? Do you show them? Do you want to be appreciated? Then, you must appreciate someone else? Appreciate your staff and you will be appreciated.

 Advice. Get some. Take it. Most people don’t.

 Criticism. Get some. Ask for it. Beg for it. It is such a precious commodity that most people will not freely give it to you. Yet, you simply can not become better at anything without it. Hold your criticizer close to your heart because it is the only way to improve. From your marriage to your business, to your relationship with your friends, criticism is the basis for improvement. If you are so happy with yourself that you believe you can not become better, then reject all forms of criticism. Most ordinary people do. Extraordinary people never do.

            Which 3 of these e-principles do you believe are the most important to success? Which e-principle is the most important?  How would you modify them based on your own experience? Tell us what e-principles do you use that you would like to share with a new entrepreneur? Let’s harvest a master list from all of our experiences that we can share with others that will be guiding lights for rational business practices, ethical innovation and successful entrepreneurship for a new business venture. What are your suggestions?

About a year ago somebody in the California State Park department decided that a nude beach was wrong and started a legal and legislative process to ban nudity on this remote stretch of beach. There are lawsuits and counter-suits and court hearings. If you think that a state that is paying its bills with I.O.U.’s and cutting funding for kids education would have higher priorities for how it uses it’s scarce resources, you’d be wrong. You’re probably also someone with entrepreneurial instincts.

Which brings up the difference between the Enforcer and the Entrepreneur. Enforcers are those who have a clear view of how things need to work – and put their full energy, talents and skill towards making that happen. They know the way they do things is the “right” way and once they “educate” others, things will be much better. We’ve all met Enforcers. They’re the “customer service” rep who scowls when you ask for something special, the administrator who sends you to the back of the line because you filled out part of a form wrong, the people who know better than you how you should do things.

Entrepreneurs are those who have a clear view of what other people are seeking – and put their full energy, talents and skills towards delivering a product or service that meets those needs. They know that when they do the “right” thing for others, things will be much better for everyone, including themselves (and their own bank account).

So how do you run your business? Do you know there are ways that things would work better if only those pesky customers and clients would behave? Do they irritate you when they get messy, or make special requests? Do you try and establish firm policies and procedures to keep them in line? Do you notice that your business has been declining?

Or do you observe what your clients and customers are doing on their own? What is so important to them that they’re willing to pay to drive to dead-end roads? If you can give up your own ideas of what people should do, and look at what they really do, you have everything you need to create a spectacularly successful business.

Good Luck!

 The history of entrepreneurship speaks of its widespread power and significance. Our lifetimes have seen the cultural imprint of classic venturists like Steve Jobs and the compassionate reach of social pioneers like Bono. Their legacies are apples and oranges but their foundational movement is the same:

·         they see what others don’t;

·         they do what others won’t;

·         and they keep pushing when prudence says quit.

While there is more to entrepreneurship, these three behaviors run thread-like through every pioneer’s approach. The primary (and ultimately defining) characteristic of an entrepreneur like Bono or Jobs is a deep sense of responsibility to humanity. There are those, like pornographers and glass pipe manufacturers, who lack it and subtract life; and there are others like Bono and Jobs who breathe it and add life. Such life-takers and life-givers are positioned at opposite ends of the entrepreneurial spectrum. Between them are lives of impact and significance, and lives of suspicion and disgrace.    How do we best teach people to serve as life-giving entrepreneurs?   This is a significant question that we must take the time to responsibly answer for the benefit of humanity and global prosperity.

I was a high school senior when Mr. Winzenread took an unexpected interest in me. What he saw back then was raw, naive and undeveloped at best—but he encouraged me nonetheless and it gave wings to my heritage. It was likely my first tangible experience with the effect of everyday entrepreneurship.

Before a baseball playoff game, he approached me and said, “Glenn, I believe in you. You’re going to get a couple base hits today.” I told him I hoped so and then went out and got a couple base hits that led the team to the next round. Mr. Winzenread was there too. Again he approached me during warm-ups and said, “I believe in you, son.” I got two more hits and we traveled to the quarterfinals eight hours north. There, hanging on the locker room wall, was a huge banner that read: “Believe, Conceive, Achieve.” Mr. Winzenread approached during batting practice and said, “Son, believe, conceive, achieve.” There was a theme behind his actions and he continued to weave it the remainder of the school year.

Then a gift arrived at my parents’ home following graduation. I opened the large box and there was a note from Mr. Winzenread: “There are lots of smart people in the world but most don’t leave the box they’re in.” Beneath the note was a smaller box and inside it a ceramic rhinoceros and a second note. It read: “Take this with you wherever you go.” A few months later, during my first week at UCLA, Mr. Winzenread phoned to explain the notes and gift.

“Glenn,” he said, “You’re from a small school and you’re not as prepared as the others. They have better education, better credentials and more distinction. But you’re a rhino. Keep charging.”

He was teaching me a lesson those final months of my senior year and I’ve never forgotten it. I am powerful if I choose to be. Believing this truth is where the business of living begins. Believe in your power. Conceive how you will use it. Achieve something momentous.

“I believe”… Two words when placed side-by-side reference a meaning of limitless will & possibility! Not many verbal statements establish the electrifying energy that “I believe” can!

Just the simple act of entertaining thoughts of “I believe”, (often referenced as “never give up” … not to be confused with “should give up”), stir goose bumps barely matched by most other stimuli’s. Is it not true; we humans journey through our lives with a never-ending quest for seeking gratification from others? It would be easy to say that believing in one’s self is enough, yet a quick glace into our past and we rapidly recall the personal joys felt when a parent, teacher or friend encouraged us by assurances such as; “go ahead, you can do it, I believe in you”!

Our business life is not so much different then our personal life. Corporate legacy has come and gone based on the commitment of “I believe”. In fact, businesses’ die or thrive based on “I believe in”…

Consider the incalculable potentials when examining supplemental phrases such as:

“I believe in myself”

“I believe in you, I believe in him and in her”

“I believe in this”…

“I believe we can”…

Think of the infinite possibilities that arise from these kinds of statements. In actuality, the genesis for all advancement, evolution and acts of bravery have sprang forth from the first moments of “I believe” clarity.

Who knows where any of us would be, or would have ended up had it not been for the intention of “I believe”?

Here is what I believe: No business can thrive or survive without the reinfusion of this extraordinary human necessity. It is only through this one basic yet profound human element that all other personal and business performances can hope to regain our confidence trek back towards the goal line of success.