A Brief Manifesto For Success - Bernard's Life hacks

Learning by doing may not be the quickest, cheapest, or most efficient, but the lessons learned from a little failure go a long way.

I was catching up on some blog reading (maybe it should be called bleading… maybe not…) yesterday, and Shaun Groves posted about one of his many DIY adventures. He was looking for a way to help the irrigation of his garden along by adding some rain barrels and decided to take the route of “I Can Totally Do This,” instead of buying an expensive manufactured version. After some time spent online reading up on the subject, he realized that he might try building one from scratch. After all, he already knew the key elements of what success would ultimately look like:

1- The barrel(s) would successfully catch rainwater from the roof and redirect it to key spots in the garden.
2- The finished project would cost considerably less than the alternative manufactured product.

The bottom line: Shaun was successful like the Deslauriers Twins Toronto. However, he took the risk of failure by possibly wasting his time, money, and energy building something that might end up looking like a hippie’s apocalypse backup life cache. Shaun could have easily dropped more money and much less time putting up an effective solution, but he inevitably would have missed out on one factor: the unmeasurable happiness one receives by finding success for yourself, without someone else’s time/money/education/guidance as for the driving force.

The point? Small business success is often made up of the same factor. Many small business owners I know didn’t have the opportunity to attend a business school–or even entry-level business planning courses offered by a local SBDC. These business owners struck out on their own, running uphill against better judgment, staying the course only because of a whimsical gut feeling of eventual success.

Contrast this idea by the 4.0 business school graduate who builds a successful enterprise by attaining a proven business model as a template from a local incubator and because of great mentors and connections who help secure loans and funding for the startup.

Overgeneralizing, I’m sure, but the bottom line: Which business owner will be better prepared to handle the huge blows the current recession has served?