This morning on my way to the airport returning home from an entrepreneurship conference in San Antonio (ACTiVATE won the top national award for “Specialty Entrepreneurship Education Programs”) we had an engaging conversation with our cab driver. He was asking about the conference we attended and when we mentioned entrepreneurship, we found that he had quite a lot to say around that topic. Apparently, he has had quite a history with entrepreneurship and had some interesting advice based on his experiences.
He shared that he has been starting businesses since he was a teenager and that other than self-help books out there (I didn’t ask him if he’d read The ParentPreneur Edge), he had received no business training whatsoever. His take on business is that you just have to do it. He used his vending business as an example. He went out on the first day and realized he didn’t bring enough change. The next day he went out with more change but realized he didn’t bring enough napkins. And so it went. By the end of his first couple of weeks in business, he had it down. He didn’t spend a lot of time planning out how much change he needed in the beginning – he gave himself permission to try it, be wrong, and correct it the next day. Interesting idea. Sometimes in life we just have to do it. Quit procrastinating, stop making excuses, get up off your butt, and do it.
I don’t necessarily advocate approaching everything in life or business with a complete lack of planning, but there is a place for considering it. All too often, we use uncertainty as an excuse to stall when we really should be just pushing ahead. When is the last time you just went for it. What makes you afraid to move forward?
