Business as a Teacher

Every truly wise person knows that learning is a lifelong endeavor. It appears that we are, in fact, created to keep learning. It’s an obvious condition that is grossly overlooked by employers who do nothing to encourage their workers to learn.

The entrepreneur, on the other hand, can be in a constant state of learning. That’s what attracted me to my own business in the first place.

Most of us who have heard the Eastern proverb that says, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear,” think it refers to an individual who comes to guide us.

I’d like to suggest that proverb applies to business as well. Your business can and will teach you to uncover hidden talents, to think bigger, to discipline yourself.

It would be impossible to identify all the things my business has taught me, things I might never have learned any other way. Here are a few I do recognize.

° Building from the ground up is fun. My mentor used to say we all have an architect within us, a force that wants to design and build things that have never existed before.

The joy of seeing an idea come to life is one of life’s great blessings—one that entrepreneurs have over and over again as they create new things.

° I can’t outperform my self-image. My business is a reflection of what I think of myself and who I am in the world.

Once I learned this, working on maintaining a positive self-image and challenging self-doubts became a top priority that led me to a new area of study.Consequently, my library is filled with books on personal growth subjects by numerous elegant teachers.

° It all balances out. Taking a long view is the secret weapon of every successful entrepreneur. Life is about ebb and flow; so is business, of course.

If cash flow is down this month, it may be unusually large next month.

It takes a few years of being in business to see how this really works, but it’s still helpful to make this basic assumption.

° We live in a world of opportunity. I certainly didn’t know this in the days when I worked for others.

Now I am constantly in awe of how huge the possibilities are for anyone willing to take responsibility for bringing them into being.

° The more I invest in my business, the more it returns the investment. When I spend my time and money in ways that stretch me, my business gets better.

Books, seminars and time spent with other entrepreneurs are not simply indulgences. They’re power tools for success.

Taylor Caldwell said, “The true purpose of education is to enlarge the soul, to widen the mind, to stimulate wonder, to give a new vision and understanding of the world, to excite the intellect, to awaken dormant faculties for the exultation of the possessor.”

The true purpose of business is exactly the same, but in this course you get paid to learn. What a great way to spend a life.

Bringing Back Balance

Over a quarter century ago, writer Dianne Hales fell in love with the Italian language and has invested much time in learning to speak it. I spent the holiday weekend sharing her adventures thanks to her delightful book, La Bella Lingua.

What Hales discovered along the way—which explains why this is about much more than simply becoming bilingual—is that the Italian language has had a deep impact on creating the culture.

Readers of the book are treated to discussions about music, art, history, literature, movies, cuisine and, even, profanity (which the Italians have elevated to an art form of its own).

One of my favorite stories appears in the chapter La Storia dell’Arte where Halle introduces us to an artist that was part of the early Renaissance scene. Tomasso Guido only lived to be 27 and just a few of his paintings exist, but they were so different to the style of other artists around him that they helped other painters to see things in a new way.

He was also, apparently, a workaholic. As Hales reports, “He was so on fire with le cose dell’arte (literally ‘the things of art’ or artistic matters) that he paid no attention to the clothes he wore, the food he ate, the money he received or owed—and went down in history as Masaccio, or Messy Tom.”

Masaccio is not alone. One of the most difficult things for all of us is to create a life of balance. We all know when life gets out of balance, although we may not notice it until it becomes extreme.

Nevertheless, in every nook and cranny of our lives, balance is necessary if we are to feel peaceful and powerful. Too much of anything can throw everything out of whack.

This notion runs counter to the popular advice to make “singleness of purpose” and “blinding commitment” our operating philosophy. That is not the path to a balanced life.

A woman in a seminar once told me she’d started a gardening business  that had become so successful that she’s busy all summer long. “Now I don’t enjoy my own garden anymore,” she complained.

She had decided the solution was to give up her gardening business and find something new. I thought a more reasonable option was to start a non-gardening profit center and keep only the clients she really enjoyed. I’m not sure I managed to convince her.

 In seeking balance, we often eliminate when it makes more sense to moderate. It’s not diversity that causes us to lose our balance: monotony and repetition are the culprits.

Creating diversity can be a great balancer since it allows us to tap into different passions. It’s also necessary to constantly reassess and discard what no longer works, what we’ve outgrown. 

Next time, I’ll show you how I managed to find balance amidst the passion. Stay tuned.