Not For The Weak or Fainthearted | Part II

You can make money doing anything, but you could make money doing something that you have a great passion for. Why do I say that? I say it because sometimes you will face substantial failure along the way. The question to ask yourself is, would you rather fail and have a great time doing something you're passionate about, or would you choose to do something that you despise for 40 years, and maybe, only maybe, it becomes mildly successful?

Only you can determine that. No matter what, as a current entrepreneur or senior executive, you can rest assured that there will be difficult and even hard times. I'll tell you a secret I learned from survival training in the military, survival training built around what happens when a parachute malfunctions in the air during an Airborne operation.

We were taught that the best kind of survival decision is the one that is already made. For example, you jump out of a high-performance aircraft with a parachute to conduct an Airborne operation, and your parachute doesn't open. This is not the time to look at different courses of action of what you should do and evaluate all the decisions, especially with only seconds to spare. I suggest time is of the essence, and the best decision is the one that's already made.

Instructors tell you not to fight the main canopy all the way down to your destruction. If it doesn't work, go to plan B. Plan B is your reserve parachute. Go ahead and decide what you will do with each possible type of malfunction.

As a business leader, you should always have a plan B. Never assume that you're plan A will work. And, more importantly, learn to persevere to the very end.

In the next blog post, we will discuss how you create a backup plan.