Enter John Smith. John is a seemingly well established business person with an unverifiable track record to back up his self proclaimed ability to take investment money and generate a very attractive return. After sitting through his pitch, I can’t help but feel like I’m missing the point entirely. How does this complicated combination of private equity, institutional debt, venture capital, patent licenses, mergers, acquisitions, and hostile takeovers lead to increasing value? The fact of the matter is that it’s easy to over analyze anything (and everything) in business, but you should always end up back at the basics. What are we providing? Do people need it? Can we charge more than it costs us? Without the fundamentals, the advanced structures and “strategic plans” are nothing more than a smoke screen to mask the truth.

Explaining how you are going to make money shouldn’t be difficult, complicated, or require an MBA refresher. It also shouldn’t take more than thirty minutes. If it does, I’m probably going to lose my money.

As much as this pertains to new businesses starting out it also pertains to those that are well established. And it happens. Markets change. People change. The leaders and decision makers behind a company can lose interest and, when that happens, the business as a whole will suffer.

There’s more opportunity today than ever before to build your wealth doing something that you truly enjoy. Don’t rush yourself and don’t chase the money – the reward will be much greater.

I’ve always thought about a blog, and I’ve also always had people asking me why I don’t have one. In fact, over the years (and more so recently), I received a lot of encouragement to start a blog from friends, family, and even a book publisher. None of that is why this blog now exists.

I love learning and growing both as a person and a professional. A considerable portion of my life is spent throwing myself into uncomfortable situations and learning how to get out of them as successfully as possible. The process of starting a blog (and believe me when I say it was a process!) made me realize that it really is no different than starting any other business. Reflecting, planning, building, learning, repeat. Miraculously, I’ve come out the other end and I’m ready to begin! I’m uncomfortable, and that’s exactly how I should be.

My passions are business, music and aviation. It’s quite an unusual set of interests but, as I’ll explain in a future post, it’s interesting how sometimes the things that you’re most interested in end up becoming key ingredients to your success.

As you may have already read on The Author page (if you haven’t, I encourage you to do so!), I will share many of my own stories of success and failure, lessons learned, and general thoughts on business. I encourage you to participate in anything I write. While I do enjoy sharing, I get a greater sense of satisfaction when I inspire others to do the same.

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