Sometimes the River Goes Around a Bend to a Dead End
The path of an Entrepreneur is often uncharted territory for the newbie. I say it is uncharted because if he wished for stability and security they would stay the course of a traditional employee with a company that can be seen and known.
For those of us who must heed the call to reach greatness and success on our own terms, the path is riddled with unknowns.
Yesterday I went on a run at the end of the day in a new part of Fish Creek Park I hadn’t been to before. I decided I would run forward for a certain amount of time and find whatever I would find and then once the time was up turn around and head back to my car.
I ran past the most beautiful pond with ducks and geese squawking, the path leading down a steep hill and then along a trickling creek peppered with white birch trees. About 15 minutes in I came to a distinct fork in the road and one subtle gravel path. I gave way to my curiosity and chose the path less traveled. Woodpeckers darted from tree to tree and soon I spotted a pool of water which looked like part of a river. Unable to discipline myself to stay the course I ventured through the dry, grassy dead fall and went to the edge of the water. It was still icy on top and I could see that it went around a bend.
In my own business I feel like I have been in the flow and I wonder what my next course of action or strategy should be and so I thought I might walk along a bit and see just where this little river went/ Maybe it would give me some direction for my own ventures.
The scenery was beautiful and I saw a pair of ducks swimming away from me to around the corner of what I thought was a river through the forest. Suddenly I saw that I had arrived at the completed pool where these two ducks had settled down.
Have I arrived, or found a dead end?
In your business how do you determine if your strategy is worthy of tenacity or if it’s trying to tell you to back up a bit and follow a slightly different path?
Last week I had Pho (yummy!) with a friend who is an amazing financial planner and she had been working for years at trying to build her business a certain way with a certain company. It never seemed to yield returns in proportion to the energy she poured into it.
Recently she followed another path with a different company and in her first month brought about as much as her whole previous year!
Life is about the journey, not the destination.
It is imperative as an entrepreneur to constantly assess and question your current path, habits, and plans. Will this current course bring you to a place where you can delight in having arrived? Or is it a dead end that no amount of tenacity is ever going to change?
Don’t be afraid to backtrack a bit when it allows for more opportunity going forward. As you adjust and then forge ahead slightly more prepared, you may find treasures previously unknown!
As they say “Life is about the journey, not the destination”
Have a look at what is around the bend for you; is it going somewhere you want to go?