Section five — growth
module eleven: marketing
module twelve: strategy
module thirteen: look to the future
Watch the video below to listen to this page’s content, OR scroll to read the content instead:
Once upon a time, I was playing a game of Baby Animal Memory with my twin boys, Hank and Cory.
Hank had already gathered a budding collection of matches (he had the baby chicks, the baby penguins, and the baby goats), while Cory had yet to make a match. He was taking a really long time to take his turn, but he was staring so intently at those cardboard picture cutouts as if he was trying to see through them to the other side. I told him to take his turn, and he said he didn’t want to take a turn.
“Like, at all?” I said, “If you don’t take a turn, you won’t be able to learn where the other matches are.”
He told me he didn’t want his brother to know, so he wouldn’t bother trying. Instead, he just wanted to wait until Hank took his turn, and then Cory would jump in and take a turn once he knew where to make a match.
After I laughed, I told him that’s not how you play the game. But how ideal would it be if you could wait for everyone else to make their mistakes and weed out the wrong moves so that you could move forward only by making the correct ones?
I think you can tell where I’m going with this.
Look at what you’ve accomplished so far with your growing business. You’ve created all of this from just the seed of an idea or a dream! That’s entrepreneurship at its finest, my friends — the thrill of creating something and earning a reward for your efforts.
But don’t use the success you’ve garnered to just coast along, waiting for the next right move to show itself.
If you want to discover new areas of growth and success for your business, you’re going to have to take a few risks. You’re going to have to flip over those cards to see what baby animal is on the other side, even if it results in unexpected consequences because otherwise, you’re never going to find the right card to make a match and win the game.