Would it be fair?

Would it be fair to say that I’m a better teacher than doer? That from my many life experiences I can describe a process for others more efficiently than I can carry it out for myself? I think it is.

Since mid-March, I’ve been proctoring a college class for two adult ed students at the facility where I work. It met one afternoon/evening a week for a Zoom presentation that I broadcast on a movie screen in my classroom for the two men, and then they spent the requisite time that followed until the next lecture completing their assignments. The course was on entrepreneurship, and I’ve taken the class right along with them. It’s been very informative, though I’m not planning to start nor own a business.

I spent a summer during my college years working for an entrepreneur; it was a fascinating experience, and I hope to be able to bring him to my workplace sometime to meet with my students. I worked for him a number of years later under different circumstances, too, and I can see via hindsight that you can take the entrepreneur out of his shop, but he’s still an entrepreneur in how he approaches all his business!

So, today, one of my students was puzzled by a question for the final project, when it asked what steps he would take, if any, to go from his current status to his highest goal–paycheck to wealth. He was quite stymied, really, so I asked him a few questions to get him going, but when he didn’t quite grasp the concept, I made a couple of suggestions. “Consistent sales? Good financial practices? Planning ahead?” The light began to flicker behind his eyes, and he nodded, hesitantly. “Do you play chess?” I inquired. When he indicated yes, I pushed along, “What’s the best way to win?”

“Plan ahead,” he replied.

“Exactly!” I said. “Same with business. You have to plan ahead so that you’re ready, come what may.” At that point, I wanted to burst into the song, “Come What May” from Moulin Rouge, but I restrained myself. Instead, I got up and went to the whiteboard, talking as I moved. “I know you’re catching on, but let’s look at this a little more concretely.”

I drew a vertical line on the board and made it fork off into two directions while quoting Yogi Berra, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” I followed up with, “As a business owner, you’re going to be planning for the next steps your business needs to take, of course. And you may see this juncture approaching, and you have in mind that you have one direction you want to go. Either way, you need to be looking at the pros and cons of either direction you could go, and the subsequent junctures those directions could lead to and their pros and cons, and so on, just as you would with each chess move. And as you think you’ve found your way to go, maybe with a few reservations, perhaps an opportunity you weren’t expecting arises regarding the opposite direction, so you look at it again. At that point, you need to talk with you advisers, lay out what your thinking is on both directions, and see if they can see anything you’ve missed. That will help you make the best informed decision possible for the good of your business. And you need to keep looking for chances and hurdles so you can stay ahead of the curve and ahead of your competitors.”

“Does that make more sense?” He indicated that it did, and he returned to his computer to plug away at his marketing and business plan with a renewed sense of direction. I, on the other hand, returned to my desk with the knowledge that I could explain it to him, but wouldn’t be pursuing development nor ownership of my own business.

So, back to the original question: Is it fair to label myself more capable of describing the process than carrying it out? Yes. Yes, it is. 🙂