I come from a family of business owners. It’s normal to wake up every day thinking about ways to improve our products, our sales, and to dream up new services to offer. If an interesting opportunity emerges in a specific market, we pivot or create a new business to meet the need!
It’s a lot of fun.
The people I’m close to these days have the same outlook. We are excited by new challenges and love the grind and risk of it all. It makes us feel alive and in control of our lives.
For example, a couple of years ago the military began auctioning off a wave of retired Humvees that were fixing to be replaced by the new MRAPs. My dad saw this and saw opportunity and he began buying up as many as he could on auction. Together he and my mom cleaned up, repaired, and customized these Humvees and got them street-legal here in Oklahoma.
He saw a niche that only a few others saw in the market: upperclass customers looking to spend some of their hard-earned income on a fun, tough, hard-to-get vehicles.
After some positioning and marketing lead by mom, they began to steadily sell these big-ticket humvees to doctors, surgeons, YouTube influencers, retired military, firefighters, and other business owners.
This is just one example of how our family loves to find new opportunities and it’s the same story when it comes to most people who live to build businesses.
But what are we after in all of this? Is it just a distraction we’re after? Is it greed, gain, and money we’re after?
Thoreau said it best.
Many men go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.
Henry David Thoreau
I would say the same thing about business owners and entrepreneurs.
Many entrepreneurs build businesses all their lives without knowing that it’s not money they are after.
Me
It is not the fish or the money we’re after: It’s the experience of being useful.
There is something inside that compels us to build, create, and serve. This is not to say other people who decide they fit best inside a business are any different. But there’s something unique about the makeup of those who love to take on the risk of creating something new.
This can be taught as well.
My wife’s family approches their work and career the way most people do. Go to college, get the degree, find the job, work the job, get raises, and retire. It’s not a bad plan at all, and it’s the message taught to most kids coming out of high school looking for the next step.
But after a couple of years, I was able to convince my wife to take the leap into self-employment. Now, she’s helping build our business, a writing academy, author books, all while being a mother to our baby Jane.
We’re all on an adventure and I hope you take yours with grit and determination.
Build something big!
But just remember why you do it.
It’s all for the joy and purpose of helping others. Be useful. Create.
Leave a Reply