All my clients have this in common before they start working with me.

I want to talk about that elephant sitting in the corner of the room over there. He’s just sitting quietly, minding his own business, hoping no one would notice.

And because we are polite we pretend not to see him, even though that means we have to live with the huge inconvenience.

We make excuses, walk around him. I see someone even tried to screen off that corner of the room, but there is no hiding a six ton, thirteen foot tall animal in a room like this. 

There’s a ton of extra work and cleanup to be done, and nothing is as easy as we think it’s going to be. But that’s life with an elephant in the room.

Let’s talk about that.

The elephant, my friends, whispers to you every once in a while. He has a surprisingly soft voice that says: “Everyone seems to know something about business that you can’t seem to grasp.”

That elephant is the same fear I see over and over again: 

“I don’t know if I’m cut out to run a business.” 

“It’s starting to be too much for me.” 

“I just want it to be fun again.”

Do you ever look around and think some people are just more lucky or more talented and you’ll ALWAYS have to work harder for the same results?

Is “being good at business” luck?

Mathematically, yes. A lot of success you see comes down to the lucky circumstances of an individual.

Others have an innate talent for the tempo of business. They don’t consciously recognize the patterns they naturally understand as a Way of Being. 

But maybe you could consider that luck too.

There is another group, and these are my favorite kind because they create their own success. This group is themost fun to work with because they are inspired, determined, creative, and love the work they get to do for their clients.

They are the Learners. 

Learners want to understand the “how” and “why.” They thirst for knowledge so they take risks, learn from experiments, learn the hard way, humble themselves to receive feedback, and get curious about the next question. 

Think of the last Google search hole you went down? What was it about?

For me it was perfume. My daughter is trying a new perfume and we were talking about types and quality and prices since I’ve never worn much. We raised a lot of questions that neither of us had an answer to. So off she goes to her room, but I am 18 tabs deep into Chrome searching for “documentaries on perfume,” “how to make perfume,” “small batch perfume," and “is starting a perfume business a thing?”

You guys…. if you are curious about something and are open to being WRONG and reveling in the rewards of being wrong as much as you are delighted by being right, you can learn ANYTHING! 

And the process can be delightful, and encouraging, and safe, and inspiring, and desirable.

All you need is curiosity, the information you specifically want and in a language you can easily understand, and keeping that curiosity alive. 

There is nothing worse than a teacher who kills the love of learning.

So back to The Learners.

Learners own the role of “Business Owner.” 

Those of us who weren’t born with the business gene can and do great things by claiming this role and being active instead of reactionary with the responsibilities that come with the job.

But sometimes – yeah, we OWN the ROLE, but we don’t know where to start when EVERYTHING needs to get done.

And for small business owners - I mean for real small, not 500-employees-or-less “small” -  I’m talking “we don’t have departments because it’s just the 5 of us” small – there’s a catch.

They don’t teach this stuff in accounting classes or business school or even in business books.

Truth is, 98% of business books don’t apply to us. They don’t apply to me, they don’t apply to you. They are meant for either “small businesses” in the definition of the SBA is 500 (FIVE HUNDRED!!!!!) employees or fewer.

Um… there’s a big difference between a business with an owner, 2 fulltime employees, a part timer and a handful of contractors, and FIVE HUNDRED EMPLOYEES. 

You lose us when lessons and tactics taught rely on delegating to your sales person or getting a line of credit to invest in factory infrastructure.  That’s not us.

But the good news is that I created a framework that you can use to visualize the patterns that make a business successful. 

It’s simple. And once you see it you can’t unsee it. Once you see the pattern, you don’t need that 6th-sense about the business of business.

And here is something I know to be true because I’ve seen it over and over again:

If you provide a service or product through your business that you are proud of and you want to learn, you can be really good at business too. 

Want to see the framework?

I’ll be teaching it in my Facebook Group here. Come join us!