by Mike Jones
“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.” –Marcus Aurelius
My first 36 years on earth have been amazing, and I consider myself lucky to have fumbled into starting my first business, CrossFit St Paul – which has led to two additional CrossFit gyms, and the launch of Alchemy. Hindsight and experience tells me, however, that luck is only a piece of the pie and anyone with the wherewithal and temperament can start their own business or do great things.
I am an entrepreneur. I build businesses that change peoples’ lives for the better. I love every second of it. I can say that now after 7 years as a business owner though I did not truly consider myself a “real” entrepreneur for the first few years. Like many people who wish they could start their own business, I thought to myself, “I’d like to start my own business some day but I don’t have a great idea.” Sound like you? Want to start a business but don’t have a good idea? Or want to move somewhere or change careers but don’t know how? Start today by considering two key elements: fear and action. Then start taking life by its horns.
“What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do.” -Tim Ferriss
If you don’t listen to Tim Ferriss’s podcasts, you should start right now. He interviews world-class performers and digs into the common themes that make them exceptional. One of the most common themes among all of these high-performers is their management of fear. These people have found a problem they want to solve, a craft they are passionate about, or an itch they need to scratch, and they consider what’s the worst outcome of launching their endeavor. They determine that not taking action would be worse than taking action and failing. So they jump in with all of their being.
I have taken this approach in all my endeavors, risking all my financial security and comfortable paychecks because not following my passions is an infinitely worse outcome than following them and failing. I often have said if I fail completely I will move my family back into my mom’s basement and start over – that would suck, but would it really be that bad? Of course not. We would all survive, the kids would have a blast, and we’d be back on our feet in less than a year.
This week I am launching my first Kickstarter, a culminating project to launch the Torpedo, a weightlifting tool I invented with my partners. Three years ago I had no idea how to create a product from scratch, but not doing it would be entirely worse than trying and failing. So I took one step by drawing it in my journal, and went from there. Do I have fear in these endeavors? Every day. The Kickstarter could be a complete bomb. But not taking action on something I believe in completely is worse. Which gets me to the next concept – action.
“Most people overestimate what they can do in a year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.” – Bill Gates
Exceptional people do exceptional things not because they have more time in the day than you or I, but because they create a vision for how they want things to be different, take the step towards that vision, and don’t give up when things get hard. The Torpedo is a pretty simple product, but I had no idea how to create it when we first identified the problem we needed to solve – we needed a more versatile tool than we currently had available in our gyms to perform the workouts we wanted in a smaller space at Alchemy. It would have been easy to just settle for whatever was available and move on, but I had a vision for something we could create that was superior, so I drew my horrible rendering. Then I got a handy friend, Dan Nesler, to help me make a prototype. Then I got another handy friend, Jake Boeshens, to help me make the next protype. Then I got another friend, Mike Hara, to help me design the actual product. Then I contacted a manufacturer and asked if they can make it. Then I ordered a prototype. And so on until a year later we were using the Torpedo in both Alchemy studios. Building the vision and taking one step at a time can create amazing things.
If you want to start a business, don’t just sit around waiting for inspiration to strike – get together with a friend and brainstorm 10 ideas over a beer or coffee, narrow down to one, discuss it for an hour, and spend 30 minutes writing a 1-page business plan. Do that 10 times and I guarantee you’ll have at least one business idea you might want to take action on. Then take action! Build your prototype or your blog or whatever it is, send it to your friends and ask them to use it and give you feedback, and then keep going. Don’t want to start a business but want a career change? Follow the same approach. Realize that not taking action is worse than failure. You will absolutely not have amazing change or success in a year, but you will be amazed at what you will accomplish in a decade. Good luck!
Mike Jones is CEO of Union Fitness and Alchemy. He is most proud of his raw denim, long board, and backyard garden.
