Tag Archives: business courage

Do As If No One Is Judging – This Entrepreneur’s Life

Dining with a doctor last night he pulled from his wallet a neatly folded scrap of article listing salaries of the top executives in the medical insurance companies.  The list showed tens of millions of dollars paid out annually.  As he spoke of his outrage and solutions he was pondering I asked him why he wasn’t publishing his insights.

“No one will listen,” he said.

“Publish them anyway.” I said.

“Why? When no one will care?”

Then I told him the story of Truth in Accounting-  that I had met a woman years ago who told me she was going to uncover the truth in state and federal budgets, one state and one line item at a time until she knew the whole, unvarnished truth.

At the time I thought this woman was mad. After all this wasn’t the movie DAVE and then I thought “no one will listen.. to her in particular” even if she does – no chance in hell, manage to get it right.

She didn’t seem to notice the look on my face, nor did she notice the look on anyone else’s face who she told of this.  She had just decided with absolute clarity to do this thing, line by line, state by state, item by item. It was not her dream.  It was merely what she had to do and went about doing it.

And she did get it right, astronomically, stratospherically right.

Now people from all across the country from individuals to major publications are listening and taking note.  Truth in Accounting has become the Institute for Truth in Accounting and it is a beacon of insight for all to learn and know.

There is a piece of an adage that says, sing like no one is listening, dance like no one is watching, love like you’ve never been hurt, and to this I’d like to add, do your thing like no one is judging – because in the end no one can judge what hasn’t been done..and what hasn’t been done might just be what you are supposed to be doing.

http://www.truthinaccounting.org/

Surviving in Business – Entrepreneurial Wisdom

Bunch of frogs !Image by Ioan Sameli via Flickr

After reading countless stories about deals that fell through -  I want to share with you a famous story that I resented reading, but in retrospect have found comforting.

Ping – A Frog in Search of a New Pond by Stuart Avery – tells of a frog who needs a new  pond and finds an owl who agrees to be his guide and mentor.  For years the frog trains with the owl to make his great leap over a vast waterfall to a bigger pond.

The owl gives the frog wisdom, discipline, tough and cryptic challenges – they bond, the frog gets stronger and better and you think it is going to turn out like the Karate Kid but it doesn’t.

On the day of the great leap the frog bounds in the air with perfection. As he is sailing across the great waterfall with the Owl watching proudly a hawk drops from the sky and swoops the Owl away digging its great claws into the Owl’s back.

The frog sees this in horror, loses his balance and crashes into the gushing waterfall.  Fighting to live, his little body crashes against rock and water – gets banged and submerged and suffocated. Then the frog suddenly thinks of the Owl’s lessons and lets go as his teachings would remind him.

He stops fighting and struggling, stops flailing against the current and lets the experience wash over him as painfully as it might be .  His instinct kicks in and then he lives.  End of story.

This is entrepreneurship and the struggle of small business to survive.  Sometimes you leap and sail, sometimes you leap and crash but as long as you live and learn, you’re good to go.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]