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Half the battle… or more than that?

~ Chris Martin ~ Leave a comment

“Half the battle is perseverance.  It’s hard.  Most people give up.”

This is important as you’re building out your business plan.  It’s hard.  You won’t know what you’re doing in the beginning and you’ll stumble.  People will tell you it’s not the right idea, you can’t make your passion a viable business or simply tell you not to do it.  I’ve had all 3 said to me.  The hardest was when somebody whose opinion is important to me told me not to do it.  It actually stopped me from progressing as much as I probably would have if I hadn’t listened to them.  However, while it was a stumble it didn’t stop me.  Why?  Perseverance.  I worked through how hard it was.  I didn’t give up.  I had passion.  If any one of those attributes were missing heck for even some of the time things probably wouldn’t have worked out.

So have the passion about what you’re getting into.  It’s hard.  Without it you just can’t have the needed perseverance and will probably give up.  With it you probably won’t.

hello

~ Chris Martin ~ Leave a comment

Hi, welcome to my blog. I started this blog because the first question I’m asked when I mention I own a small business is, “Wow, what is that like?”  I have the same, experienced answer.  It’s great!  You’re building something, you’re helping people achieve whatever they’re trying to achieve and hopefully your accomplishing your financial goals.  It’s great knowing you can affect & correct every aspect of your organization.  It’s all you.  It’s a whole new set of problems you never imagined though.  I’ll get into those as time goes by.

So what’s with the title?  Well, it’s “lead by example”.  Be the example of what you expect from your team.  Teach them what’s important by your actions not just your words.

I think it’s appropriate that my first post talks about my first lesson, at my first job & at my first management training class.  In the class I asked a very tenured & successful manager, “What does it take to be a successful leader?”  Being right out of the college textbooks and a mindset of I’ve been trained at a 60,000 student university I was ready for something like tenacity, skilled, problem solver, self driven, etc.  To my surprise he said, “You need to care about people.”  Whoa?!  I thought “I” was the key to my success.  I thought “I” was the most important driver of my success.  He explained that if you care about people & their success they will be the most important part of your success.  Over the years I’ve learned he was right.  Yes, there are some who will simply take advantage of your efforts.  You need to address and remove those when you see that is the case.  However, if you hire the right people most will actually help you become the leader you want to be.  I strongly believe that business philosophy because I’ve seen it over and over again.

Hire the right people, help them achieve their own goals, remove those that don’t get it… and Lead By I.E.