I gave my son 10 tips today on how to be successful in business. This is my advice on how to set up a new project launching into the new world after quarantine
I was talking together with a friend, who is a top international business coach, and we were talking with my son Will about a new business venture he wanted to create. Together, this friend and I have over 40 year’s experience of coaching successful innovators and entrepreneurs. We wanted to share some of our wisdom with my son who is just reaching the tender age of 21 and starting out in the world of business and work.
My son shared a new business idea that he wanted to some feedback. The idea is to do with his passion – namely air travel and the aviation industry – and it is a big idea. He was gauging our opinion about giving the idea to a friend of ours who is already successful in business and who he thought could make it happen. My son wanted to know what we thought and how he should move on it.
The other business coach and I both came up with a string of thoughts about this to share. Will took extensive notes and is moving fast on this advice. The ideas we spoke about highlight some new approaches that we should all take a think about during this time of unprecedented change and transformation in the world.
The first thing we both told young Will is that he is capable of pulling off this idea himself and doesn’t need to give it away to someone else who is older and more experienced than him.
We recommended to him to write down the idea on one page – get the idea clear, note down what the problem is solving, what the solution is, why it’s a great concept, and why it the world needs this right now. Write down ideas of who to reach out to who could help to make it happen and be specific about what is needed to take it on to the next stage. We suggested to chunk it down into some easy and connected steps.
Specifically, we recommended to him these approaches to setting up his new business project:
10 steps to set up a business that will work
- Create a solid project team made up of people who bring a specific and useful talent to the table
Assemble a great team together with different skills and brainstorm together noting down ideas, solutions, angles and tactics. Identify the core skills of this group and create a steering group to birth the project. Get a spread of skills in the project team.
- Mastermind group
Create what Napoleon Hill (author of million-selling book Think and grow rich) called a Mastermind group – this is a group of three minds or more to create a think tank. A good team can create anything much better than individuals working alone.
- Have an idea and do something about it
When you have an idea, grab it, and run with the ball if it fires your imagination. Don’t wait for others to do it before you. Ideas have a habit of dropping down to many people at the same time. It’s the ones who take the idea and move with that succeed and have a new project that works. Many times, people say that their idea was taken by someone else. Now what happens is that an idea drops into many minds at the same time and whoever runs with it gets the prize. There are so many examples of this and it has happened to me several times.
- Keep your ideas private until you are ready to unwrap them
Don’t give your idea away to others. Keep it under wraps until you are ready. You don’t want to invite the naysayers and gloom and doom thinkers throwing water all over your fire.
- Don’t share your vision with people who see problems in everything – all they can add is more problems
Don’t share the details of what you are doing – you are not looking for other opinions and the limited belief systems of others to pull your down or hold you back. If others couldn’t imagine this working, this doesn’t mean it won’t work. We all have our own journey. If you believe in it, work at it and you will make it work. Many of the best and most successful ideas when were presented were not seen as successful ideas to start with.
- Have a vision
Vision what you want to be the end result and hold that vision.
You are capable of success in any idea that gives you joy. We are given emotions as an internal GPS guide to help us work out what we should do an fulfil our destiny. Follow your passions, follow your joy and you will succeed.
- Get good advice
Ask for advice. Reach out and ask others to help you with skills, ideas, contacts or personal recommendations.
- Love what you do
Work hard and love what you do. Go at it like it matters and like you are in love with the idea. If you stop loving what you do, change what you do.
- Believe in yourself and your talents
Have ideas and run with them. Any gaps you have in your skillset, hire them into your team. Hire the best people you can.
Build trust, tell the truth, set value in integrity and following through on promises.
This is the recipe for doing great business and developing projects that work. Young people are our future and have not yet developed fixed ideas on the way things should be done.
We need a new future, with new outlooks, fresh perspectives, and young people at the helm who care about this planet and love its resources.
- Our future is in the hands of the next generation who are hard-wired to care more than we have about the planet
The future is here. Let’s look to the younger generation – they seem to care more and love more and have better filters for building the new paradigm of heart-centred and kind approaches to doing business and creating new kinds of business models.
Let’s build a better future. Our young ones are our saviours.
Go Will – go and do your amazing project and look to the stars and bring your vision into reality. Make it happen.
You know you can do it. We all know we can achieve the impossible if we believe we can.