How Entrepreneurs Stay in the Game: Learning to Learn

Filed in archive Entrepreneurship on October 2, 2006

I sometimes think people who own and operate small businesses think that they are playing in the World Series. It is the bottom of the Eighth inning, bases are loaded and your best hitter has stepped up to the plate and you need him to hit a grand slam in order to win the World Series - or you loose it all.

Risking it all to own a small business is wrong and totally unnecessary.

Does it happen? Do people who own a business loose it all? Yes, businesses do go bankrupt and some business owners loose it all, however, they are the exception and not the rule. Here is proof, after two years 76% are still in business and as my essay illustrates, closure of a business can be a positive event.

We have been brainwashed that failure is a bad thing. That failure is absolute and it is not. As long as we 'fail well' we will be able to play another day. Thinking that owning a small business requires you to 'risk it all', is a prevalent but erroneous perception.

What we need to learn is the ability to 'stay in the game'. This is not something you will hear in small business circles often but is true nonetheless.

So forget about failure, home runs, and grand slams by focusing on base hits - that way you can learn from your mistakes and play the game another day.

As you can see my perspective is that business is not about winning or losing but about 'staying in the game' to play another day - to do that you need to learn how to learn.

During the month of September I was part of the Joyful and Jubilant Learning Forum, I mentioned it in my Disaster and Contingency Planning post.

If there was one skill I would say was essential for every business owner and entrepreneur it would be the ability to learn and is important for entrepreneurs for one simple reason - it keeps you in the game. There are 100's of ideas about learning over at the Joyful, Jubilant Learning Forum, check it out and see what you can learn.