My conversations with business owners will focus on the journey they are on to create the business and life to which they truly aspire.

When I refer to the Oxford Dictionary, a journey is defined as:

“An act of travelling from one place to another”

 Given this, I believe a business owner must be clear about both where they are now as well as what they are aspiring to create in business and life.  However, in my experience, business owners are generally pretty good with the former but struggle with the latter.

By not defining where they want to go, the business owner cannot see a clear way forward. Without that clarity, they will be reluctant to take the actions necessary to drive the business forward.

Herein lies a paradox – we will not act until there is a clear way forward but in acting, we cannot definitively say what the outcome will be.

Carl Jung describes this paradox

“If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s”

 In that moment, it becomes a question of faith in your ability to move forward even when the outcome is unclear.  As Martin Luther King describes it:

“Faith is taking the first step even when you can’t see the whole staircase”