But Is Your Good Idea Aligned with You?
Who Are You? I can’t emphasize enough the importance of starting any career in business, or any next step in a career, by first going inward. When I was young and getting out of law school, I did not do this, and ended up spending three years practicing law, something that was ill fit with who I am. Three years I’d love to have back! But I consider myself lucky. Many people I know have wasted 10, 20, 30 or more years doing something that does not serve their life purpose.
The most important threshold questions in coming up with the Good Idea are often ignored by entrepreneurs, and to their great detriment. They involve a deep dive into “Who am I?” More specifically:
· What do I want in life?
· What do I need?
· What is my purpose in life?
· What are my greatest strengths?
· What are my biggest weaknesses?
· In what environments do I thrive?
· In what environments do I not thrive?
· What makes me happy?
· What are my most challenging stressors?
Simon Sinek, bestselling author of Start with Why, does a great job of helping people figure out who they are and why they do what they do. Check out www.simonsinek.com.
If the Business Is Not Aligned with You, The Experience Will Fail. My conviction here, and it may be the most valuable concept I write about, is that every single business idea you pursue that is not aligned with who you are is destined to result in failure for you personally. Maybe not immediately, and maybe not for the business itself. But definitely for you personally.
I can cite thousands of cases I have personally witnessed. Cases where, regardless of how the businesses do, they are not providing what the entrepreneur wants or needs in life. They are not serving their purpose for living. They are not leveraging their greatest strengths or are forced to rely on their greatest weaknesses. They are in an environment not conducive to thriving. They find little joy or happiness. Every day, they are plagued by their most serious stressors.
Continue to Look Inward. This look inward should be ongoing. After quitting law, and returning to Berkeley’s Haas School for my MBA, I began employing a gut test on my professional pursuits. A literal gut test. If on a Sunday night I did not feel super psyched about the beginning of the next day’s work week, if I had a queasy feeling in my stomach, I knew I was either in the wrong line of work or I needed to dramatically change the nature of the work to align with who I was. I committed to myself that I would never linger in a work situation that did not fire me up such that Sunday night’s overwhelming feeling was, “I can’t wait to get to work tomorrow!”
Draft Your Own Why Statement (i.e., Your Why Filter). A number of years ago, I ran across an exercise created, I believe, by Simon Sinek. It had me draft stories of the most meaningful personal and professional experiences. They could be positive or negative, just so long as they were meaningful. So, I drafted 19 of them, in great detail. It took me all day. Then I screened them for the recurring ideas, words, phrases, and feelings. After doing a lot of soul searching into my common themes, I was able to craft my Why Statement or, as I like to call it, my Why Filter:
I thrive by working (1) in trusted relationships (2) with extraordinary, like-valued people so that we can (3) grow individually and (4) positively impact the lives of others.
I still use my Why Filter before deciding to do anything of substance or work closely with anyone. And no amount of money or other element will justify compromising on these. And it has served me without fail.
Use the Like/Value/Money Venn Filter. The secondary, and extremely valuable, filter is what I call the Like/Value/Money Filter. There are a lot of other names for this, but the functionality is excellent. This Venn Diagram is not pasting her very well, so work with me, please. Envision three overlapping circles. One has the question “What do I really enjoy doing? The second has the question “What will people pay me for?” And the third asks “What am I good at?”
The intersection of all three populations is precisely where you want to be. But the overwhelming number of business owners are at the intersection of what they are good at and what people will pay them for. But they don’t enjoy their work lives and likely their lives in general.
Another group is at the intersection of what they enjoy doing and what people will pay for. But if they are not good at what they are producing, the market will eventually stop paying them.
A third group is at the intersection of what they enjoy doing and what they are good at. But in many cases, the market will not pay them for it.
Find What You Enjoy, What You are Good At, and What People Will Pay You For. Once you have applied this Like/Value/Money Venn Filter, you will have narrowed your opportunities even further. Now, let’s look at the idea you have. Is it an Executable Good Idea?
GROW and SELL Advisors, wholly-owned by Traversi & Co., LLC, is a premier sell-side M&A advisory firm – a boutique investment bank – serving the lower middle market. Visit us here.
For a short video clip on this topic, click here.