I recently finished reading the autobiography of Will Smith, that charismatic actor whose life is filled not only with movies and TV shows but also with a military father, a mother beaten by him, and a pack of ice hidden behind the charisma.
Will began his autobiography with a story about a brick wall that his father made him and his brother build all summer:
“Dad stood and watched as the last bricks were laid in place. With a cigarette in his hand, he quietly admired our work. Harry and I laid and aligned the last brick, then there was silence. Harry shrugged slightly—what should we do now? Jump, shout, celebrate? We timidly stepped back from the wall and stood on either side of Dad. The three of us carefully inspected our new wall. Dad threw the cigarette on the ground, crushed it with his boot, exhaled the last puff of smoke, and without taking his eyes off the wall, said: ’Don’t ever tell me you can’t do something.’”
I read and thought, I use this principle myself. Brick by brick, I invest in myself and my work, be it our still small project, be it my horses (I own 4 wonderful horses), or anything else. If you want to do something well, you do it systematically. My grandfather taught me this.
When you start doing something, you either study the market and look for a niche that you can occupy with minimal investment, or you study yourself, figuring out what you like to do or what you can do well enough to offer your services to other people.
After answering these questions, you need to remain a sought-after specialist in your field. And this is where, it seems to me, the next brick wall begins. The next one because you already have the first one—who you are right now.
Managing a business requires an entrepreneur to constantly learn and adapt to the modern world. Skills such as management, strategic thinking, financial literacy, and leadership are very important. Management and time management help organize and plan your day, strategic thinking helps understand what needs to be done today to bring more money tomorrow, financial literacy helps properly invest this money in yourself/business to work better and more comfortably (or just finally relax!), and leadership skills help scale your business. It is also important to remember about discipline and responsibility. A responsible approach to work ensures your reputation, and discipline helps reduce the stress level from unmet tasks on time, discipline is one of the best ways to manage problems and stress in business, and thus helps develop stress resilience.
And if modern neuropsychology is to be believed, discipline in one area inevitably helps develop discipline in everything else. I have many examples of successful people who first started doing their job, and then changed themselves for the better. When you lay bricks well somewhere, you want them to lie well everywhere.
When we started this service—we didn’t know anyone in Bulgaria, now I know so many people, for example, in the construction field, that I can easily build a house because my arsenal of contacts includes builders, electricians, a crane operator, and many other cool specialists who are also doing their job—laying their brick wall.
The result of all this should be financial independence, which will allow the entrepreneur to invest more in their education, health, and family well-being.