Even in 2012, there are tons of business owners who pay five thousand dollars to someone in order to design a website. If you have to make a change, it costs the entrepreneurial wizard five hundred dollars to do it. That’s way to much money for value. Please, I’m begging you, stop paying huge amounts of money on your web site. I have been listening to, and very much enjoying podcast’s of a person by the name of Dave Ramsey. He has impressed me to the point where I needed to go out and purchase one of his latest books called ‘EntrLeaderShip’, and it’s proving to be a fantastic listen. (I don’t buy dead tree books if I can help it, so I download the Audible format whenever I can) Even my wife really loves the book, and usually she finds this type of business book quite boring, but Dave says a few things in the book that sets the traditional way of thinking on its head.
He makes a point in the book about including his wife in all of his major business decisions, and that’s just not common in this male dominated world. He goes so far as to say that in his younger days, he would never consider consulting his wife on any business dealings, but has changed his mind 180 degrees, and attributes his unbelievable growth to his wife’s contributions. Dave’s type of ‘engagement’ is based on a multiple of things, but one of the most sought after attributes that kept me on top of my toes as I was listening is…… passion. He said that you can take someone who has the ultimate in education that can orate like a dream, but has no passion, and they will get soundly beaten by the passionate person almost every single time. Passion is also at the root of engagement. As a small to medium sized business owner its your job to create as well as maintain passion for as long as you own your business. But, what if your passion has just died on the vine? Well, there’s hope for you yet. Just keep reading.
Passion can be rekindled, restarted, re-issued, re-invented and re-whatever label you want to give it, but it can come back to you. Let’s face it, sometimes when you get up to go to your ‘passion’ at the breakfast table, the butter is just a little too hard, and rips your toast all to shreds, your coffee has gobs of grounds in it and you spilled jam all over your favourite tie or blouse before you step out the door. That’ll put a damper on your passion for the day. It’s fine if its just for a day, but what if that feeling lasts for a week, month or more? Does the passion slowly creep away? Iv’e been told you can get it back ‘big time’.
If you make a list of all the reasons you love to do what it is your doing, that is the first step. Dave relates a funny story about a very successful real estate agent that made a great deal of money and was working in the field he belonged when some ‘moron’ (those are Dave’s words) told his that he needed to open up a restaurant, which he did and almost lost his shirt in the process. He belonged in the real estate business, and should have stayed there, but he was influenced by someone who didn’t know his strength’s but could bend his ear still the same. The moral of the story is that this man knew all about his passion, but temporarily walked away from it, perhaps because he was either bored or had a bout of ‘imbalance’ in his personal life. So, if you build that list that had you so emotionally charged when you first hung up your shingle, you should begin to feel the earth underneath you start to move, just like before. Dave state’s that when your doing what you were designed to be doing, things just seem to fall into place like never before, and you accomplish so much more that you thought possible.
Here’s my advice. Don’t take it from me, ask a true expert in the field.
Click here to listen to one of Dave Ramsey’s podcast’s on his homepage.