my 5 personal advice for entrepreneurs

I’ve been reluctant to share this article with folks but it’s too honest and raw not to share. Couple months ago, I wrote an article – at the request of Leadership Journal – about the “price of getting personally involved in justice.”

The editors of Leadership Journal entitled the article, “One Pastor’s Quest.” Honestly, it could have been entitled, “One Pastor’s Many Mistakes in Trying to do a Good Thing.”

As One Day’s Wages approaches its 1 year anniversary, what people mostly see is the growth and the positive attention it has received through individuals and media. But behind the scenes, it has been one of the most arduous and difficult seasons of my life.

I’d like to strongly encourage you to take a few minutes to read the full article – so that you might learn from my mistakes. Please…learn from my mistakes.

After having started three fairly large undertakings with planting Quest Church, starting a non-profit community cafe & music venue, and most recently, One Day’s Wages, I can tell you that I’ve made some mistakes and blunders along the way. There’s many and each of these can be a chapter of a book but here’s a quick summation of  some of them. Here’s  five  important advice I can give to especially those who are starting something new including churchplants, non-profits, businesses, and anything else you can think of that involves working with other people…

Sacrifice & Cost

There’s a cost and sacrifice. Just remember that because the minute you forget that is the moment you’ll get your arse kicked.  Pursuing visions and dreams will always cost you something and more often than not, it’s not just one thing.

For the record, I won’t listen to anyone that’s not willing to sacrifice something for their visions and dreams.

The Entrepreneurial Exodus

With every endeavor, there’s always been a small exodus of people that disagree, misunderstand, and eventually depart. I call it the Entrepreneurial Exodus and yes, I just made that up. When we finally launched the church…people left. When I was stupid enough to do a building campaign in the first year of our church, renovated a building, and started the cafe…people left. When another church “merged” into Quest…people left. When ODW was getting started…people left. Starting new things open you up disagreements, criticism, and the entrepreneurial exodus.

It sucks.

It’s not ideal but it happens. There’s a reason why it’s been documented that in the process of a church engaging and finishing a building project, up to 30% of a congregation leaves. This is a combination of #1 and #2.

Energy & Tenacity

The energy required to launch any vision or dream is beyond what you can probably fathom. And for those that think they know is simply because they know in their knowledge but have yet to experience it through their heart and soul. Be prepared and know that it’s going to incredibly difficult and be prepared to feel it as you go through it.

But here’s the key thing: This is only for a season and not for ever.

For many, this is what separates dreamers and those that dream and implement. When I look at those that have pursued and lived out their dreams, one of the commonalities is tenacity. Be tenacious. I’m no longer as impressed with ideas. I’m more impressed with passionate and tenacious people with ideas.

Cast Vision and Over-Communicate

One of the biggest blunders I’ve made is to under-communicate.

Cast the vision. Distribute the vision. Share the vision. And share it again. In short, over-communicate until people tell you, “That’s enough. I get it…”  Don’t leave too much room for misunderstandings and mis-assumptions.

Because if you do…it will always happen. Always.

People  > Project

This is key. When you start something, you’re essentially working on a project. You’re giving life and birth to something. In the business language, you become a project manager but when you elevate the project over the value of people or more bluntly, when you use people to pursue your project, you’ve missed the point and you’ll hurt some people along the way.

That sucks. It’s singlehandedly the source of my greatest pain.

What’s important to note is that if you’re not careful, it happens when it’s not intended.

How do I know? Because I have done those very things.

The remedy?

Vision and projects may perish. People don’t. Learn how to value people.

And yes, I’m still working on that one and for that matter, all of the above.