Do you think in terms of just getting by or do you think multiplication?
We get into the grind of life and we often get caught up in terms of getting bogged down in what needs to be done. There are a thousand menial tasks that need to be done at home and in business, but keeping our eyes in the dirt before us produces nothing good. Getting busy with things that need to get done, will only keep us busy with things that need to be done. Next year we are still doing the same things. Five years from now we are tired and busy and we think that this is all there is, so we stop trying to get ahead. We accept our fate and try to find joy in it. If there is no joy, there is comfortable mediocrity at least and that is all there is…
That is NOT all there is! It takes the same amount of effort to excel that it does to just get by. The effort to do something great is the same as to do something meaningless. The difference is focusing on how we think. Think multiplication instead of thinking in linear terms.
Dollars for hours will suck your soul of all purpose and destroy your dreams. Slavery for an hourly wage will keep you in a home beside people who are just as miserable and discontent as you are. You are completely limited because there are only 24 hours a day. Even if you get your income up to $200 an hour, expenses rise with that and there you are limited by the hours of the day. A gerbil caught in a wheel running and running and never getting anywhere. You have a nice cage, and a nice wheel. Maybe your wheel is nicer than all of the other gerbils on the block but you are still in a cage. Maybe your wheel has the biggest television in front of you as you run to distract you from the fact that you are still in a cage and you are STILL a gerbil.
So you start a business and progress. You buy your widgets for $1 and you sell them for $1.50. You get some real estate and the market goes up some by percentage. You buy a few stocks and you look for a safe place to put your money because you don’t want to take risks with money that took you a long time to accumulate. You will take longer vacations from your cage now. You will sometimes feel on top of the world and make a decent living. As long as you own your business and it doesn’t own you, you will do well. What does that mean?
If you leave it unattended does it grow? Can you go away for a weekend without tending to it? If the person who runs the till does not show up, will you have to go run the till? How many hours a day are you working? How many weeks of the year are you working? Do you think multiplication? Or do you think about getting by now at a new level of getting by. Are you still living in a cage? Is it a nicer cage with a yard and a few freedoms, but still a cage? Do you own this business? Or is it that the business owns you?
Think multiplication.
Can you buy a widget for $1 and sell it for $3 and it is still a good value for the consumer? Can you produce it yourself for .67 cents and still sell it for $3? Can you sell them in bundles to wholesalers for $2.50 a widget and move them a thousand at a time?
Can you franchise your great idea and set up businesses like yours across the country? Can you get others to run them for you? Do you want 100% of your own effort, or would you rather have 1% of the efforts of 100 people? Think multiplication. Think bigger.
Blow up the cage!
Kerry George is the owner of the Canadian Imperial Business Network which is currently the largest business network in Alberta and rapidly expanding across the country. She is a serial entrepreneur/author and speaker with a zest for life and a passion to help others succeed in increasing their potential and their bottom line. Kerry has several publications and blogs that you can follow and welcomes most interaction online.
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