At work today, I was commenting about my poor results the past week. I had just got off the phone with a company that was in no shape the buy what I was selling. They’re a large, nationally known company whose product is directly tied to new home builds. Bad time for that sort of business…
Our CEO stopped me and – rather than coaching me on how to smooth talk my way into their pocketbooks, he spoke to me (and my team) about the way he sees America’s current economic climate. He explained how our time is similar – and different – than many times before.
I jokingly stated, “Sound like a great time to start a business.” (Our company was founded in 2007)
He went on to tell story after story of business people who caught economic waves in the 80s & 90s. They made money young. Bought expensive houses. Started new, riskier companies. They’d never failed.
Until now….
In fact, they’d never really struggled for their success.
You see, if your success is directly tied to the economic wave your company has caught, you don’t really have to be good. Or smart. You just have to follow common practice and you’ll be fine. (Examples: Investing in .com before the bubble, taking out huge housing loan in 2006 & calling yourself a social media expert in 2011).
The problem with those people is that they never developed their core. They never had to build the habits needed to weather ANY economy.
Slow growth is golden. Better than golden.
Learn the hard work. Erase entitlement from your worldview. Learn to hunt your food, even if there’s a buffet in the next room (a buffet only slowly kills you anyways…).
In fact, don’t just learn to hunt, get really good at it. Learn to teach others to hunt.
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