Mastery, Plateaus, and Enjoying the Journey

It has become clear through reading several books and interviews on entrepreneurship this week that to be a successful entrepreneur, it is essential to enjoy the journey.  The path to success is truly a journey – a journey of mastery, a journey of learning, a journey of correction, a journey of persistence, a journey of perseverance, a journey of success.

The process of Mastery cannot be rushed. It is not a ‘get rich quick’ scheme.  Mastery comes from spending consistent daily time on a skill.  For some it is practicing the piano or violin daily for years.  For others it is the daily workouts that fine tune their Olympic sport.  For entrepreneurs, this daily mastery is a combination of working on the skills that are the core of their unique business as well as the skills of entrepreneurship itself.  Many say it takes 10,000 hours to become an “expert” in a skill or trade.  This is equivalent to 3 hours per day for 10 years or 6 hours per day for 5 years.  This requires the ability to be consistent day in and day out for a long period of time.

An important aspect of Mastery is being able to persist through the plateaus.  As George Leonard discusses in his book entitled, Mastery: The Key to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment, many people tend to get off track during the plateaus of mastery.  We often feel like we should always be improving or we are not being productive or reaching our goals.  The reality is that improvement only happens in small increments separated by long plateaus.

In his book, George Leonard reviews the three types of people who did not make it through the plateaus of life or entrepreneurship.  The “Dabbler” gets excited about a new adventure and goes all in.  He then gets quickly bored and seeks the excitement of a new adventure rather than persevering to the point of Mastery.  The “Obsessive” gets impatient with the lack of results that comes with a plateau and pushes harder and harder to find the improvement they are looking for leading to early burnout.  The “Hacker” in contrast is easily pleased and doesn’t seek improvement.  This type not only doesn’t mind the plateaus, but enjoys skimming by with minimal effort.  This type actually enjoys the plateaus but their lack of effort never leads to improvement over time and never results in Mastery.

In order to make it through these plateaus we need to have a purpose beyond just seeing improvement every day.  We need to enjoy the activities we do for their own sake. We need to be living in the moment and knowing that with consistency and hard work that in the long run we will see those results and continue on the path of Mastery but that improvement is not a reward we need to continue each day. It is during these plateaus that we need to truly learn to enjoy the journey because we may not see the results of improvements until we persevere to the other side of the plateau.  However, these plateaus are the key to our success.  Those who persist through the plateaus and can enjoy the journey will truly find Mastery.

“Are successful entrepreneurs born or made? Are entrepreneurs blessed with a rare gene or shaped by their parents and childhood? Turns out, these aren’t even the right questions.  Entrepreneurs become successful, one small investment at a time, in a never-ending process. Because entrepreneurial success isn’t a destination, it’s a journey. A journey taken one determined step at a time, in a way that builds lifelong treasures.”

                              ~ Are Successful Entrepreneurs Born or Made? The Acton School of Business

Transforming FEAR

FEAR. We all have fears.  Often the fears we openly talk about are the mostly socially acceptable fears – fear of snakes, fear of spiders, fear of crazed murderers.  How often do we spend time pondering on our deeper emotional and psychological fears.  These aren’t as socially acceptable and are closer to our heart which makes them more difficult to express.  All entrepreneurs have fears and some of those fears keep them from moving forward to achieve their dreams.

The Acton Foundation for Entrepreneurial Excellence has produced a helpful guide for entrepreneurs called Deconstructing Your Fears.  In this publication, entrepreneurs are encouraged to face the “boogeyman” and shine the proverbial flashlight under the childhood bed to find those nighttime monsters.

“For entrepreneurs, like most people, fear is the subtle saboteur. It lobs self-doubts, what-if’s, and paranoia from behind the bushes along the trail. Fear thrives on secrecy. The less defined it is, the more deadly its attacks. While entrepreneurs are highly adept at naming goals, they are less sophisticated at clarifying their fears.  

This learning experience will help you focus on the fears you have about pursuing your dreams. By naming your fears in detail, you will diminish their power. You’ll gain a further advantage if you act on your fears by creating a plan for mitigating your risks and bouncing back if all else fails. 

Like a child who shines a flashlight under her bed at night, you might find that the boogeyman never existed at all. Perhaps there was nothing to fear, after all. Are you ready to shine a light on your nightmare business scenarios?”                                    ~ Deconstructing Your Fears by the Acton Foundation for Entrepreneurial Excellence

Entrepreneurs are often great at expressing their goals and the steps necessary to achieve them; however, they are much less likely to express their fears and the steps necessary to address them.  Sometimes our greatest fears are figments of our imagination and by going through this exercise of self-exploration we can discover each of our deepest fears about starting a business, determine if the fear is based on authentic risks, determine how to mitigate those risks, and have a plan on how to recover from a worse case scenario related to that risk. In this exercise, we can also determine which fears are figments of our imagination or require simple mitigation to minimize their risk.

The activity is a simple one.  Start with a piece of paper and divide it into three columns.  In the first column list your fears as they relate to starting a business.  In the second column, list the strategies to mitigate the risks related to each fear.  In the third column, list the plan to return to the status quo should a worse-case scenario become a reality.

By acknowledging our fears, pondering the details of each one, how to mitigate it’s affect on our business and our life, and then putting together a plan for recovering from those affects in a worse-case scenario, we can begin to shine the light on our fears and see them more accurately.  When we address our fears, talk about them, ponder on them, and write about them, they lose their power over us and begin to transform from fears to stepping stones on our path to success.

When Helping is Not Helpful - Ethical Guardrails

We all need to establish some guardrails in our life.  At times, these ethical and moral guardrails will help us to stay on the path to our true long-term goals rather than getting distracted by immediate gratifications of money, fame, or acceptance.  These guardrails are the “I will never” and “I will always” standards that we set for ourselves to avoid the pitfalls of getting lured into unethical behavior based on personal gain, avoiding situations, or even helping others. I consider myself a person of strong moral values and integrity and although I don’t consider myself immune to ethical dilemmas, I do consider myself fairly strong in that area.  However, this week I listed to a podcast that gave me some food for thought in this area.

A podcast host interviewed a gentleman who was very successful working for a financial firm and earning over $500,000 annually whose life was turned upside down when he was convicted for activities related to insider trading.  This financial professional was very open in discussing the events that led up to this conviction. This man was approached by a friend who was in hard times to share bits of information that might help him to earn money through buying and selling small lots of stocks.  In return, for the information the friend would share 1/3 of his earnings with the financial professional, keep 1/3 for himself, and set aside 1/3 for taxes.  Being less enticed by the payoff but more concerned about helping his friend in what seemed like a small infringement that did not actually steal from any individual.  After all, when someone makes money on the buying and selling of stocks, who is the victim?  There appears to not be any as the value is created from nothing.  So, they agreed to this arrangement and the man began to share inside information that allowed his friend to carry out this plan.  The financial professional received a few payoffs of several thousand dollars over time.  They generally met in a café to make the financial exchange.

One day the friend called to arrange for the exchange and was on a time crunch to leave town and asked if the man could meet him in a parking lot instead so he could get on the road faster for his trip.  They agreed and make the exchange in the parking lot.  The next day, the FBI showed up at the financial professional’s home and interrogated him regarding his insider trading activities. The man immediately confessed and cooperated with authorities.  After learning more about the situation, he learned that his friend was not buying and selling small amounts of stock, but had in fact made millions of dollars on this activity even though he had passed on $3000 to $5000 to the financial professional to make it appear he was making similar amounts.  The financial professional had made approximately $75,000 in these transactions which is certainly a significant amount but compared to his income was a mere 15% of his annual salary.  He also learned that the meeting his friend arranged in the parking lot rather than in the café was a sting operation that allowed his friend to obtain a plea bargain if he helped the FBI to convict the financial professional.  They both were convicted, spent time in prison, and had substantial setbacks to their careers and family relationships.

The lessons learned for me both in this week’s topics of study and listening to this podcast is that sometimes even people of high integrity can get lured into unethical practices under the guise of “helping” others.  This is a valuable lesson that we all need guardrails – those boundaries that we do not cross even when it comes to “helping” others.

I Love to Dream

Today I love to dream.  But that was not always the case. I was not a day dreamer as a child.  I paid attention in class, was very diligent in getting my homework done, and got very good grades.  I was never one to be caught daydreaming in class, lost in another world.  My dreams as a child were probably not really “dreams” in the ethereal or emotional sense, but simply life goals to get good grades, go to college, and be successful in life.  However, as an adult I have become a serious dreamer.  I love dreaming up ideas for my future businesses, my future home, my future career, my future travels, my future service as a missionary, and my future growing family of grandchildren.  I love to ponder and envision what that dream may look like. Sometimes, I may be guilty of spending too much time dreaming and not enough time “doing,” but I think it’s safe to say that I’ve also been quite a “doer” over the years and have accomplished many of my dreams. 

Through my 49 ½ years on this earth, I have been a valedictorian of my high school class, won athletic awards and scholarships in high school, completed my bachelors degree in landscape architecture, worked in my field for over 20 years designing parks, trails, landscapes, and public spaces.  I married a wonderful man, have two wonderful daughters, two wonderful sons-in-law, and two wonderful grandchildren  I have owned homes, owned rental properties, and been able to travel to many interesting places.  I love to sew and quilt and have made my own as well as both my daughters’ wedding dresses.  I have been able to volunteer regularly for my church and be involved in teaching, organizing conferences, and missionary work.  I love to garden and enjoy growing vegetables every summer.  I love living in Virginia and learning so much about our countries history.  I have already lived many of my dreams in my life.

Creating dreams and visions about my future helps me to create my life spiritually in order to later create it physically.

Randy Pausch gave his famous “Last Lecture” only a few months before he passed away from pancreatic cancer.  Randy was inspiring in how he accomplished so many of his childhood dreams.  He knew how to live life to the fullest and make the most of each day.  Something unique in Randy Pausch is that he had some very specific childhood dreams.  I think that is a gift to be able to dream so specifically at such a young age.  He knew from a young age what his “bucket list” was and went to work on it.  He is a great example of doing those things that are most important to us and living today to it’s fullest because we don’t know if we will be here tomorrow.

One of my childhood dreams was to have a very beautiful home.  I suppose having grown up in rather humble circumstances as the youngest of 7 siblings in a family of 9 in a double wide mobile home.  Although, I know that family is much more important than the home that they live in, I also believe that having a nice home in which family can feel comfortable and welcome is a wonderful blessing.   As a landscape architect, I have always been involved in design and feel that my home is reflection of my values and style.  I have lived in many lovely homes over the years that I have enjoyed, but it wasn’t until recently that my husband and I have discussed building our “dream home.”  We are in a phase of our life where our children are grown and financially independent and we have the means, financially security, and time to consider either building our dream home or remodeling our current home to become our dream home.  As we embarked on this endeavor we will seek the balance between fulfilling our dream and maintaining our standards for financial stability and integrity. 

I believe both are possible because I believe in dreams!