Engaging the Subject of Business

I haven’t had a huge amount of experience as a business consultant.  If my progress could be related to a baby’s development I am a bottle-fed crawler of questionable coordination. Even at this stage though, I am running into concerning patterns that speak to, I think, some foundational problems when it comes to entrepreneurship and or business ownership. I am hearing and witnessing issues of knowledge, focus and will when it comes to the subject of business. In this article I want to explore how we ought to approach learning the subject of business. As an entrepreneur and business owner who had a certain perspective about business, learning certain terms and processes was a complex and overwhelming burden. I only wanted to know what I needed to get by because that “stuff” wasn’t as important as getting out in the world and doing things, making it happen. I ran with the easy idea that all I needed to do was get out there and do. Everything else would come. I worked and managed my business and although I contracted labor and earned a profit I struggled to maintain and grow my business.

Why? That was the question I kept asking myself and the answer I kept getting was there was a lot I simply didn’t know. It only made sense that I found out. I went headlong yet again and enrolled in college courses. The thing was, I worked a full-time job, cared for my children during the school week (I had a daughter in basketball and soccer), usually picked up a 2^nd job for the holidays to be sure Christmas was great and worked my business.  All that and I still decided to pursue a BAS degree. To say I was pressing myself beyond my limits is spot on. You can guess what my next lesson was, I had to learn that my ability to learn was being completely and mercilessly exhausted. I would often think while tending wounds I'd earned from my Icarian jaunts how unfortunate it was that I didn’t learn and utilize business terms and processes like marketing strategy and benefit and risk analysis prior to my journey into entrepreneurship.

The gem in all of it though is the experience, the ability to look back and see how one step led to another and another and why things ended up the way they did for me. I went out to sea set to explore the world and in my exuberance and innocent determination I didn’t have the eyes to see any faulty sails or run-down rudders. I didn’t want to be brought down off that high and into the sweltering pit of reality to deal with the seemingly complex blueprints, nuts, and bolts that I had no clue about. My emotions became the seemingly subtle but immensely powerful beast I found difficult to tame. My feelings, habits and unrealistic expectations fogged the glasses of my perspective. I had desires, and patterns of behavior completely out of alignment with my business goals and I was exhausting myself needless. Because my lifestlye desires and actions weren’t in order my goals, and strategy weren’t either.

My experience as I recount it here sounds kind of horrible but experiences as we live them are never just one thing. Becoming an entrepreneur was also the most epic and daring thing I had ever done in my life; it was fulfilling and inspiring. I had so much pride when I quit my full-time job and went all in with my business. The feeling was absolutely terrifying and completely elating at the same time. I share my experience to impress upon you the reader that a big part of being an entrepreneur and a business owner is about learning about the actual subject of business. Yep, it is all about that grueling, and unsexy work. We can think that learning about business is optional all we want but I am here to tell you that one way or another you will learn, or you’ll repeat your mistakes and eventually, you’ll learn. Enjoy it. The awesome thing about experience is no matter how it turns out you’ll always be more as an individual because you had the experience. You are an ever expanding universe!

For those who are wise and hopefully humble enough to plan in some way before deciding to take major action business terms like SWOT, pitch, benefit and risk analysis and marketing strategy are familiar and friendly. For those that aren’t familiar with the previously mentioned terms may seem as foreign as a non-native language, as uncomfortable as walk on broken glass. That’s what I see when I speak to clients. It’s like I am speaking a foreign language. I get nods of understanding with mismatched eyes telling me they have no idea what I’m talking about. If I mention the work associated with those terms and processes, I get expressions of mild or complete disinterest and conversations filled expectations that I will do the heavy lifting of being wise about their goals for them. None of those scenarios lead to success. 

All that said, I can completely understand their responses. Speaking to my own experiences in midwestern school systems during the late eighties through to the turn of the millennium the subject of business was simply not the focus of the majority of general education. We may have learned about things like a benefit & risk analysis and SWOT if we decided to take the right business electives in high school but for many it is not until we begin to research, network, and pursue a business degree that we learn about basic business terms and processes. It is hard to argue with the notion that as soon you know something it becomes more likely that you’ll recognize opportunities where said knowledge can be applied and act accordingly. On the opposite end of the knowledge spectrum, if something is never learned then it is very likely the needed knowledge is not gained and therefore one may not be unable to clearly discern all available opportunity and will likely not take appropriate action.

Business is very much about identifying the right opportunities among many and making a decision for the best course of action. It’s not hard to see how learning about and knowing basic terms like a pitch, marketing strategy and accounting are of value. Learning about business is of value even beyond the domain of business. We all know that knowledge or a lack of it impacts one’s life experience in general. Speaking to our conscious awareness there seems to me to be this idea when it comes to learning the subject of business that the average human beings sees themselves as incompetent on a deep level. Thoughts like that are not necessarily true, in fact, the subconscious minds of all human beings has been, is and will continue to engage terms and processes that the broader world may assign to the category of business. We are simply not conscious of or we know business terms and processes by other names. For many, the idea of making impressions and critical thinking have no relation to terms and processes perceived as business until the appropriate mental links are formed through learning. In essence, many times we simply don’t know what we know.

It is important to know that business is born out of the processes that make up humanity’s collective experiences from prehistory to the present. Many basic business terms and processes may not be that foreign to us at all and it may be that what we need to do is give ourselves credit, stop feeling so much and focus on investing the time and energy to learn, to build the appropriate mental links when it comes to the subject of business. We should have patience with ourselves and dig in for the long haul and avoid thinking that gaining knowledge is a quick process. It has never been the case. We all know business can get pretty complex; there’s a reason successful entrepreneurs and business owners work with numerous professionals and hire skilled employees when they are able. What I am suggesting in this article is that the rest of us consider how we approach our relationship with knowledge categorized as business and withhold negative responses usually born out of incomplete perspectives and poorly channeled will and emotion. 

Essentially, and as many quotes tell us, we need to get out of our own way. Although the subject of business may seem foreign, an area of immense difficulty, triggers habits of avoidance, brings unhelpful emotions to the surface, and provokes shame of our own ignorance, we are likely more familiar with this subject than we initially give ourselves credit for. We're completely capable of building better habits, discipline emotion, and learn from experience. We can't forget we're all ignorant about one thing or another so any shame that surfaces, needs to be told to kick rocks. Once we are aware of any tendency to write ourselves off when it comes to our capacity to learn business terms and processes we can take action to build better habits and stop discouraging ourselves. Instead we need to examine what we already know, empower ourselves, and move forward. Approaching the subject of business, its terms and processes, in this way will likely provide the initial confidence, motivation and or inspiration needed to continue to make the investment. As an entrepreneur, business owner, and human being you never stop learning.

To gain business knowledge is to equip one of our most valuable assets, our mind, with the powerful tools it needs to achieve success. To frame it another way, if one were to attempt to build a house without knowledge of construction, the tools required and skill to use them the amount of time it would take us to get the job done would be far greater than someone who knows construction, which tools are needed, and has the skills it takes to use them. The ability to learn and apply basic business terms and processes is vital to all entrepreneurs and business owners. There are no exceptions. This is especially the reality for beginning entrepreneurs and business owners because in most cases we can’t afford an adequate number of employees, so we have to do all or a good amount of the work ourselves. 

Can you imagine being tasked with building two houses all by yourself and you can't read a blueprint, don’t know what a hammer, a nail, or any of the other tools are let alone how to use them? What an impossible situation! I and many entrepreneurs and business owners have experienced heaping the impossible upon ourselves, some of us more than once. All who are brave enough to get out in the world and make their own way through business ownership eventually learn all that business “stuff” they avoided because it was seemingly unfamiliar, and seemed overwhelming find out it was exactly what they needed and had they of taken the time to acquire the right knowledge they would have saved themselves a lot of growing pain.

Being an entrepreneur or business owner isn’t easy and being an informed entrepreneur and business owner is even harder. I don’t make these statements to discourage in fact I hope this article strengthens wills and inspires determination. Business success like many things in life is a step by step process. The subject of business, its terms and processes are learned, and one cannot learn if one does not invest the time and effort to do so. We don’t expect babies to come out of the womb and know how to walk, we know that’s a process, one that can take years to learn to do well. We also can’t come up with an idea for a business and expect it to be instantly successful when we don’t have any or little business knowledge or skill. Acquiring said knowledge and skill, is also a process, one that we have to invest a great amount of time and effort in for it to bear fruit. The version of you that had that great business idea is likely vastly different from the future version of you that will make it successful. 

Being a successful entrepreneur and or business owner is one of the most difficult and most rewarding experiences you can have, there is truly nothing like it. The journey requires that you maintain sustainable supplies of will, emotional discipline, and motiviation. The results are good habits, proper alignment and wisdom. Strong will, disciplined focused, and wisdom channeled through a good strategy that is what creates success. Always remember that there's this version of you that knows where they are, where they are going, and can clearly see their way forward. You just have to work to make that version of you a reality. Your greatest and most formidable foe on such an epic quest is always you. The greatness you want to be constantly clashes with who you are comfortable with being at any moment. Don’t let who you are in one moment become the obstacle that stops you from being who you need to be to achieve success in another.

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