Business Lessons From My 18 Month Old Daughter

OK technically, I am on vacation.

But when you own your own business, are you ever really on vacation?  No, of course not!  As business owners, we are constantly working our business, following up on leads, prospecting for new clients, catching up on business news, etc.

I got a very interesting and timely business lesson from my 18 month old daughter today.  Actually, she’s been trying to show me this lesson for a while, I just hadn’t been paying attention to the details.  Even though she can’t really speak yet, my daughter communicates very well. Using non-verbal communication skills, my daughter tells me when she’s hungry, tired, needs a diaper change, bored, not feeling well, etc.

One of my daughter’s favorite things to do is to stand at her toy box, and pull out every single toy.  She flings it about aimlessly, not watching where the toys go, and not really paying attention to what she’s throwing out.  Once all the toys are on the floor, she takes a mental inventory, and starts playing with one.  Then, another toy catches her attention and she goes and plays with that one.  If you have kids, you know how the rest of this story goes, she just keeps going from one toy to another.

The living room floor is a disaster.  There are toys everywhere. You have to be very careful where you step or else you might trip.  As a busy little 18 month old, my daughter does not pay attention where she steps, she just runs.  When she trips on something and falls, she gets very angry and has a little melt down.  But, she doesn’t pick up her toys so she won’t fall again, she just steps over that one and keeps going.

This scenario reminded me of some entrepreneurs I’ve observed lately.

I’ve been  a student of entrepreneurs for the last few months and I have a list of people I have been observing.  These entrepreneurs are from all different kinds of businesses so that I can get a wide range of techniques and methods.  But some seem to be running their businesses in kinda the same way my daughter plays with her toys.  In their quest to find the “next best thing” and make money, they are aimlessly moving from one project to the next.  It appears that they are trying anything and everything in their business without any real plan or direction.

What strikes me as odd is that they don’t take the time to finish a project, analyze it and come up with a plan to improve for the next time.  They keep making the same mistakes in each new program and it makes it difficult for me to follow their business.  It also makes it difficult to view them as an expert in their field.

To be honest, this is exhausting, frustrating, expensive and painful to watch.

I will admit, that not all my business adventures have been home runs -  I have made mistakes just like everyone else.  But I think one of the important things that anyone in any business can do is, figure out what went wrong and how not to make the same mistake twice.  Its not an easy task to identify your failures and sometimes it can be frustrating.  However, its a very necessary step to be more successful.

So how does my daughter’s toys fit into a business lesson?

Its simply a reminder to finish a project and put it away when its completed.  That way you can look at it from start to finish and identify what worked well, and what didn’t work so that your next project will be better.

Not too bad for an 18 month old, wouldn’t you say?