In case you didn’t see my post from last Friday, I started a new end of week tradition: extracting pearls of wisdom from the confines of a fortune cookie (courtesy of a local Asian restaurant) and interpreting how they’re relevant to life as a solopreneur.
This week’s featured fortune:
“One dreamed of becoming somebody. Another remained awake and became.”
Dreaming is wonderful. It heightens creativity and places no limits on what you can achieve. But dreaming is only dreaming; it’s not doing.
If you’re looking at starting a business, or making a significant change in the one you’re operating, dreaming is a great way to generate ideas and visualize what the future might bring. But at some point, you need to wake up and take action. You won’t become what you envision by continually just thinking about it.
If you’re dreaming the dream of starting a business, begin to make it a reality by writing down all your ideas. Then start researching all the things that you’ll need to address (market opportunity, competitive landscape, financial readiness, legal requirements, licensing, insurance, etc.).
Granted, those initial steps into reality are no picnic, but it’s those early efforts to determine feasibility that will prevent you from making catastrophic mistakes that might turn the most promising dream into a nightmare.
As a SCORE mentor, I speak with people with huge amounts of enthusiasm about their business ideas. They’re motivated. They’re ready to do what it takes. But when it comes to taking action, some seem to feel uncomfortable stepping away from the dream and doing what’s necessary to make it live and breathe. I suppose much of that is due to the fear of finding out it might not work as they envisioned. However, if you don’t take that leap and do your due diligence, you’ll never know.
So, dream and dream big, but when it comes time to do, do even bigger.
I’m open to interpreting your fortune cookie finds, too. Feel free to share your next slip of confectionary-bound wisdom here or email it to me at dawnmentz@gmail.com and I’ll try to use it in my next Fortune Cookie Friday post!
I view my role as more than an independent contractor for hire — I become a part of your team. You’ll find that I dig into the details to understand what’s important to you — and your customers. I embrace collaboration, communicate openly, and craft content to help you achieve your marketing and business goals. Read More...
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