Coaching Tip: The Leadership Blog

Plan and Budget before you become an Entrepreneur

There are few more gratifying accomplishments than making it on your own.  But here's what you should keep in mind as you figure out what to charge for your work and how to budget for your future.

Perhaps, the greatest advantage of hanging out your own shingle or making that consulting or coaching business full time is the independence that comes with being your own boss.  But the higher expenses and other costs come along with your newfound liberty.

The way we think is conditioned by our life experiences.  If we've spent our life in a classroom, we tend to think as a student or teacher.  If we've spent our work life as an employee, we tend to think as an employee.

Many new entrepreneurs talk-the-talk of the entrepreneur -- but their thinking is still grounded in their life as an employee.  This can be deadly to their goals and aspirations.

Why Unconventional Wisdom Wins

David can beat Goliath by substituting effort for ability--and substituting effort for ability turns out to be a winning formula for underdogs in all walks of life.

Underdog insurgents operate in real time.

Consider the way T. E. Lawrence (or, as he is better known, Lawrence of Arabia) lead the revolt against the Ottoman Army occupying Arabia near the end of the First World War.  The British were helping the Arabs in their uprising, and the initial focus was Medina, the city at the end of a long railroad that the Turks had built, running south from Damascus and down through the Hejaz desert.  The Turks had amassed a large force in Medina, and the British leadership wanted Lawrence to gather the Arabs and destroy the Turkish garrison there, before the Turks could threaten the entire region.

Lawrence attacked the Turks where they were weak--the railroad--and not where they were strong, Medina.  Lawrence hit the Turks, in that stretch of railroad in the spring of 1917, nearly every day, because he knew that the more he accelerated the pace of combat the more the war became a battle of endurance--and endurance battles favor the insurgent.  Just as it did David against Goliath many years before.

"And it happened as the Philistine arose and was drawing near David that David hastened and ran out from the lines toward the Philistine," the Bible says.  "And he reached his hand into the pouch and took from there a stone and slung it and struck the Philistine in his forehead."  The second sentence--the slingshot part--is what made David famous.  But the first sentence matters just as much.