One of the most over-used quotes from Star Wars was Yoda's advice to young Luke Skywalker. Luke says he would try to use his jedi powers, and Yoda tells him "Do or do not. There is no try." So, with the same horror I felt when I heard myself saying something with not only Mom's words but her tone of voice, I recently told a coaching client to do, not try.
It appears that Yoda had the brain of an entrepreneur.
Here's how I got from quoting Yoda to offering a different strategic approach to a business.
New entrepreneurs often say to others (and to themselves), "I'm going to give my business a try and see how it goes." This reinforces the belief that it's beyond our control whether our business takes off or stays in start-up.
It's like the analogy of being in the pool or out of the pool. If you're still thinking-about trying-out see-how-it-goes about your business, then you're sitting at the edge of the pool, dangling your toes in the water.For your business to make it, you need to be all the way in the water. Yes, it's cold at first, but then you get energized as you acclimate to a different environment.
So I encouraged my client to re-word her approach. Now, she's running her information business, and she's going to reassess what she wants to do as a profession at the end of a year. This enables her to truly throw herself into her business, with the life preserver of stopping after 12 months if she finds that she doesn't enjoy it or doesn't want to do what's required to get her business going.
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