Recent activity in my consulting business has revolved around a number of start-up companies.  It has made me revisit the foundation of the small business growth cycle once again.  One of the observation I that I wrote about in an earlier post titled “Is Your Startup Focused on the Right Objectives?” was how new business owners tend to get wrapped up in things that shouldn’t which distracts them from the objectives that are critical to the first stage of the growth model.

This recent go round is no different. Inventors tend to want to focus on later stage issues and forget about the critical objectives of the foundation stage.  Things like what will the market really pay for their product or service, or how hard do they need to work to consistently reach “break even” for their business?

It reminded me of a presentation that I did in a while back for the Tampa Bay Inventors Council titled Transition from Inventor to Entrepreneur which was turned into a blog post.  In this presentation I focused on the importance of vision and understanding the key factors to success are important to understanding what transition needs to take place.  But, the most difficult thing any inventor will ever need to do is change themselves to have the success they envision.

Why is this?  Because change is HARD!!!  But, it is critical to have success.

Some of you might say, “I don’t need to change to have success.”  And I would argue if you didn’t need to change then why has success eluded you so far?  It’s because you lack some skill or knowledge that is critical to the success formula for your vision.

Some of us even know what it is, but there is some fear within us that stands as a 1,000 foot wall to us having what we want.  Figure out how to get past the fear and you’ll have the prize.  Avoiding it adds to the insanity which is our day-to-day grind.

A good place to start is by understanding what success really means to you.  Have you figured that out for yourself yet?  If not, then you may need some help defining your vision.

If you have gotten over the wall share your story here.  Show others what you did to get past the 1,000 foot wall.  Sometimes it’s less than you might think!  In fact, it’s an optical illusion and the wall is really only 3 feet high.  For those of us that have scaled that wall let’s help those that are still on the other side!!!