We can’t just throw money into a great idea and hope for the best! In fact, great ideas can flourish even under severe scarcity of money, but the converse is never true: No money – and I mean not even millions - can transform a great idea into a great business in the absence of Passion. Yes I mean it. If you are one of the many well- meaning but self-defeating visionaries I meet almost every day, perhaps – just perhaps - this is your turning point!
Now that you have spoken. You have said (through the website polls) that the majority of us would rather start and run our own businesses than anything else – only if we could know that what we were doing is something that we came to do here in the first place, and two, we are guaranteed that we will never fail.
But let me share a part of my personal story that I intentionally left of in my biography – my love life! A few members of the Food for Thought Ezine have come forward and said they would have wanted to know about that as well. Someone I respect have even suggested I conduct seminars on how to strike a balance between a thriving business (or a successful professional career) and a really happy home front (or family).
Today I have to admit, I do have a lovely wife! We have been married for more than ten years now and we have been together for 17 years. If you can add one and one - and come to eleven – and you have read my story, you can make out that I met my wife during that worst part of my life, the time when I had just failed at the most important mission in my life – to get a University degree. It still surprises me how such a great person can chose to commit herself to a good-for-nothing University dropout who did not even believe in himself anymore!
Now, as they say, the rest is history – but I am herein saying that whatever I have done, she has been behind it. At times she would disapprove - and in most times - she would support me wholeheartedly – just like she supports me fully on what I do through the website and the Food of Thought Ezine. Now why do I drag my wife into this? Because I want to illustrate the seriousness of our topic today!
How many times do I hear full time employed souls talking about this business idea “My friend and me have started. We have decided that one of us is going to go full time and I will only join him when there is enough cash in the business.” God gracious hear us! Most times that business idea never matures into fruition and sooner than later the volunteer has to start searching for another job. By then the other partners usually disappear into thin air!
In the majority of cases though – at least those I have personally witnessed – the person who took the risk will end up doing that business alone in any case, because the working member never get the guts to leave her “comfortable” position. It stands to reason that if the other members so believeth in the idea in the first place, nine out of ten times they would have been the ones who volunteered to step out. Why wont such low risk strategy not work?
In a most cases the problem is money! Or, this is what the world wants us to believe. What else can we expect from the majority of the world population – who themselves are not entrepreneurs or understand very little about entrepreneurship per se.
“If only I could have so much money (say R100 000) then I would also resign from my job and become self employed”, I have heard that song so many times. But lets be honest with each other here: How many successful entrepreneurs do you know who started with a R100 000 in the bank account? Most entrepreneurs I know started with nothing at all.
I am very sorry – but I have to be blunt and tell you the truth! Only the truth can liberate us, I believe. The probability for you, if you are in that position, to achieve financial freedom is less than 0,05%. Firstly because, like all of us, your expenses are just at best equal to your earnings. Well for a huge number of us – we spend more than we earn. As Jim Rohn once said; “it’s because we all spend our income first and then save what is left.” Unfortunately more often than not, nothing is left to save – let alone to invest in a business we are not permanently involved in. The poor volunteer has to struggle by herself!
Even if we belong to the rare species – I don’t know where, from mars or something – and we have mastered the game of saving something worthwhile from our monthly earnings, the sad part is that we are still miles away from being entrepreneurs. “Oh, now that really sound weird!” you say. And you are probably right – for that make me sound very judgemental!
The fact is that you cannot replace Passion with Money! But you can compliment passion with money! Entrepreneurship is firstly about spotting a “need” – a need for a particular product or service that could positively impact the world. It is about LOVE. We love the idea so much that other people say to us: “You are really passionate about this!”
Only then should we make up our minds whether we can risk our monies into something or not, I believe. But let me tell you how my wife has helped me to achieve – at least if anything – the survival of ten years as an entrepreneur without ever neglecting it! Whenever I think about any business idea, I always bounce it with her. Needless to say, the first thing that comes to her mind is the safety of her children. What if we lose it all? The little money and assets we have accumulated over the years? “You are not going to sacrifice my family for that,” the statement is always very clear whether it is verbal or posturic!
But let me tell you the real mystery. Let me tell what happens when I bring home a Great Idea. When my love for a Great Idea reaches the “Passion” level, then I do not have to do any convincing – not anymore! She is then the one who asks me why I am not prepared to spend money on that particular idea. She is the one who says, “Even if you have to travel the whole world for it, you have my blessing – only you have to take me with you”.
Wow! If only someone told me about this earlier in my life. If only I had come across Michael Gerber powerful statement as he wrote: “Unless your idea for a business exceeds anything you have ever imagined doing before... Is bigger than anything you have believed yourself capable of before this moment... Has the potential of transforming a large enough number of people’s lives in the world to make a huge difference in how the world works... And challenges you sufficiently to make it a reality, don’t do it.
Oh, how I so wish we were all like Warren Buffet, the billionaire who converted his $100 to tens of billions of dollars just spotting businesses ran by passionate individuals and investing in them! How I so wish there was a virtual school whereon I could register to learn the tricks of identifying real Passion.
Oh how I wish I had learnt earlier in life that “I could never throw money and get rewarded with Passion, but I could always throw my Passion and be rewarded with great rewards – including money”. |
