As an entrepreneur, I understand the pains and pitfalls of growing a business. I have done it twice from scratch. It can be frustrating to work long hard hours with very little sometimes in return. Your friends and family keep telling you to quit and get a job. Job is the acronym for “just over broke”. But you keep fighting the good fight. Pressing past the pain and humiliation of growing your business until one day, BAM, it just explodes and those same family and friends who are now jealous beyond belief, respond with how “lucky” you are. WHAT?! LUCKY?! Well you know what it takes. The best story I ever read is in the book “Flourish”.

The story is about growing a Chinese Moso Bamboo tree. This type of bamboo tree is a unique plant of nature. To grow a Moso Bamboo tree one must plant an 18 inch stalk in a 3 foot hole. Once the bamboo stalk is planted it must be fertilized and then watered every day, 365 days per year. If you miss watering your bamboo tree it will not grow. After the first year of watering and fertilizing your tree, you will see no visible growth. Then in year two of fertilizing and watering every day, no visible growth. In year three of fertilizing and watering every day, no visible growth. In year four of fertilizing and watering every day, no visible growth. But in the fifth year on the 1,825^th day from planting our Moso Bamboo Tree the first sign of visible growth can be seen. Once the sprout sees sun light for the first time, the bamboo tree will grow 90 feet in just 6 weeks! That’s three feet per 24 hours and as tall as a nine story building. Now did our bamboo tree grow 90 feet in six weeks or 90 feet in five years? See what is not being seen is under the soil, the roots are growing for five years literally miles to support the 90 foot tall tree and without that root structure the tree cannot grow.

When an entrepreneur begins and grows his business, we too are building our root structure to support our tree or business. Friends and family don’t see what is under our soil either. The entrepreneur pushes on past the nonbelievers who only live in their moment. The entrepreneur has faith and is expectant every step of the journey “fertilizing and watering” his or her business every day, 365 days a year until that day their business takes off like a 90 foot bamboo tree. We are not lucky, luck is created when preparation meets opportunity. It takes time to build a successful business and the most rewarding aspect is that the majority of people won’t do it. It is not that they can’t, they lack the discipline to “water” 365 days a year without a visible result. If you want to be successful, never give up and never stop “watering your business”.

“Strength comes from struggle, when you learn to see your struggles as opportunities to become stronger, better, wiser, then your thinking shifts from ‘I can’t do this to I MUST DO THIS’.”—Author Unknown

Image by criminalatt images at www.freedigitalphotos.net

yourfriend4life.com

Tim Wilhoit is owner/principal of Your Friend 4 Life Insurance Agency in Nashville, TN. He is a family man, father of 3, entrepreneur, insurance agent, life insurance broker, salesman, sales trainer, recruiter, public speaker, blogger, author and team leader with over 28 years of experience in sales and marketing in the insurance and beverage industries.