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Yesterday I Met a Rich, Self-Made Hostage. Are You Becoming One?

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I was stunned when I heard it: “It’s our 30th anniversary, and I’m finally planning a full two weeks off work to celebrate.” This proud declaration from a man who owns a $30 million company is just sad. This is a man who lives in abject poverty, with no freedom and no clue he’s been doing it wrong for 30 years.

I see it all the time. Business owners whose personal lives are train wrecks, with no time to invest in their kids, spouse, or non-existent hobbies, and no time to even think about creating meaning in their own lives. They are hostages to their businesses with no end in sight for their incarceration.

People think this guy is a great business owner because he works all the time and has a lot of toys he doesn’t have time to use. I think he lives in abject poverty.

Riches vs. Wealth

Riches is just money. Wealth is freedom. Freedom is the ability to choose what to do with my time. Time is more valuable than money. It usually takes money to buy time, but unless the specific goal is to buy time, money can make us hostages.

Money does not bring freedom. Time brings freedom. This man has millions and has no freedom. He readily admits that if he is gone from his business for a few days things begin to go awry. He has built a $30 million business that depends on him personally being there every day! He is not a business owner; his business owns him. He lives in abject “time poverty”.

Intending to receive time, not just money

You get what you intend, not what you hope for. You can just hear this man starting his business. He intended to do two things:

  1. “I’m going to work really hard” and
  2. “I’m going to make me some money.”

He got exactly what he intended – hard work and some money. And he is trapped by the hard work. He did not go into business intending to get both time and money from his business, just money. He hoped that getting money would give him time and create freedom, but we don’t get what we hope (wish) for; we get what we intend to get.

A Day a Week, a Week a Month, a Month a Year

I built five businesses like he did and was trapped as a hostage every time. With Crankset Group I intended to do something different – I decided this next business was going to give me both money and time, and everything I did from the beginning was driven by forcing my business to produce both.

As a result, I now have every Monday and every Friday off, the last week of every month off, and a month in the summer – it adds up to 73% of the work week.

I use only a few weeks for vacation, and choose (freedom) to invest the rest helping others build businesses around the world, including for-profit businesses to solve poverty in central Africa.

Vacation? What Vacation?

A recent American Express OPEN survey found 66% of business owners haven’t taken time off in several years. And of those few who do take vacation, 68% of them check in daily to try to run things from their beach chair (we don’t call in at all during our month off).

It’s important to get away from your business. The famous Framingham Heart Study found those who took regular vacation are 32% less likely to die from heart disease and 20% less likely to die from anything else. Besides  being healthier, time away from the day to day grind will help you see the big picture and make you a better leader. And you’ll be more productive when you return.

The objective of your business should be to build your Ideal Lifestyle. If you’re proud that you finally get two weeks off, you need to reassess how you are running your business and your life, and refocus on wealth (time/freedom), not just riches (money).

Is this just for special people? No. I built five businesses and never got off the treadmill. The sixth time I simply decided/intended to do it differently, and – what a surprise – it turned out different.

You get what you intend, not what you hope for.

What are you intending to do with your business and your life?

Article as seen on Inc.com

Greed Doesn’t Drive Wall Street

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Day 3 of 21 days with Chuck’s new book.

Greed did not drive the giant Industrialists of the 1800s, nor does it drive companies we love to hate on Wall Street today. It’s something quite different.

As with all empire builders who passed before them, it is about power; money is just a new measure of power. In the Industrial Age, for the first time in history, you could build a fiefdom alongside a government that would not send armies to destroy you, but actually protect your right to do so.

Power To The Few
There is little doubt that most of the big Industrialists, when they were still small, likely ignored some moral or ethical boundaries to begin to accumulate wealth. Greed drives them at first, but once they have experienced wealth, the desire to be powerful is the unique and much rarer driving force behind those few people who want to dominate and crush the competition.

Bernie Madoff may have been greedy when he was a bit player on Wall Street, but very shortly it became about being powerful, well known, and highly influential in elite circles. Giant banks may start out focused on accumulating wealth, but that is quickly replaced with a focus on power and domination. After someone has significantly more than they need, it becomes about power. And power requires winning, beating the other guy.

Kings and Kingpins
The basic motivations of feudal lords, politicians and 21st century Industrialists are identical. For all of them the most intoxicating motivation is to be able to control the lives of other people, which gives them power, control, and prestige. The feudal lord accumulates armies, the politician accumulates votes and the Industrialist accumulates money, all with the same motive – domination of their respective worlds and elimination of potential threats.

Cornelius Vanderbilt was a feudal lord ruling over a fiefdom. He was so powerful he was able to destroy the entire railroad industry by shutting down the Albany bridge, the only rail bridge into New York City, which he owned. Winning at all costs, and the power that came from being on top, was the intoxicating way of life for the Industrialist. And it still is for many business people and politicians who make up the 21st century version of the Industrialist.

Sumner Redstone, the American media magnate, summed up the motivation of the 21st century Industrialists we love to hate, “They don’t think in terms of money, they think in terms of winning. Not some times. Every time.”

You see the same transition from greed to power in criminals. Small criminals may be greedy, but big criminals are motivated by power. When the Colombian super-cartel was broken up in 2012, the top three leaders, who were worth hundreds of millions each, were all found living in modest city apartments, working out of cafes, driving regular cars, and essentially living regular middle class lives. Living modestly was what made it hard to find them. When asked why they had continued selling drugs for so many years when they couldn’t spend the money, one of them replied simply, “It was for the power.”

Power Through Philanthropy
Virtually all of the big Industrialists of the 1800s gave away staggering sums of money in their later years. But even in their philanthropy they sought to crush the other guy and build a bigger library, concert hall or museum. If they were driven by greed they would have kept their money. But a building with their name on it would continue to give them prestige and a form of power even after death, and help prove to future generations that they won. That was worth more than money in the bank. Power always trumps greed.

Which Big Do You Love?
Big loves big. They have to. Big government and big business may not be fully in synch, but they are co-dependent and DO love key things about each other that will help them both remain in power. Most people find themselves rooting for one Big or the other, without realizing that decades ago both Bigs lost touch with everything small and local.

In the final analysis, both Bigs have a cozy, symbiotic relationship where donations, cronyism, favors, free trips, power, and money are flying in both directions regardless of party affiliation. They understand clearly how much they need each other in order to stay in power.

Small Is Becoming Powerful
But Big is in trouble. The Participation Age, and the ability to share information easily via the internet, is exposing the power-grabbing practices of the Bigs, at a time where returning to small and local community is becoming one of our highest values. In the coming decade, Big will be less and less necessary in our lives, and the advantage will go to the small and local businesses that are in touch with the “small” guy on the street.

Stop Rooting for the Bigs
But we will accelerate the process when we stop whining about the greed of the Bigs, and focus instead on requiring a level playing field that does not concentrate power in the hands of a few and does not favor the Bigs over the Smalls.

Do you love one Big (business or government) more than the other, because you think it will be better for you? Think again. The Bigs aren’t working to help the Smalls, but to continue to increase their own power.

This is a summary of a chapter from Chuck’s new book, “Why Employees Are ALWAYS a Bad Idea (And Other Business Diseases of the Industrial Age)”. Click here to pre-order this new ground breaking book at a discount on IndieGoGo.com until July 28.

Why Giant Corporation, Inc. doesn’t create jobs

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And why Smallnand Local Business Does.

We’re addicted to big, and part of that addiction is the assumption that big corporations are the answer to job creation. But if jobs are created, it’s going to be almost exclusively by small and local businesses. Here’s why.

In July 2010, The Kauffman Foundation for entrepreneurship released the findings of their research on job growth, titled, The Importance of Startups in Job Creation. They reported a stunning fact:

“All net job growth in the United States comes from firms less than one year old, formally defined as startups.

All other ages of firms, including companies in their first full years of existence up to firms established two centuries ago, are net job destroyers, losing 1 million jobs net combined per year.

Startups (businesses under one year old) aren’t everything when it comes to job growth. They’re the only thing.”

Only Small and Local Business Creates Jobs
This proves what many have said for decades, that small and local business is the engine of job creation in America. 98% of all companies using an Employee Identification Number (EIN) have 19 or fewer employees. If you include companies using the owner’s Social Security Number instead of an EIN, it’s closer to 99.9%.

Approximately 600,000 new businesses are established each year with EIN numbers, and probably a million more with the owner using their Social Security number. 99.9% of EIN and SSN startups will always be small, and since all net new job creation is in the first year of business, we should be doing everything we can to promote the establishment of small and local businesses.

Local Government Should Court Small Businesses, Not Big
The Kauffman report goes on to say that local governments should never court giant corporations to their towns because they are net job destroyers and will do more damage than good over their life cycle. The emphasis should be on encouraging new startups.

If we want job growth in America, we need to focus on helping small and local business owners in their first year of business. But that’s not something the government or big business wants to do.

Startup America is not for Startups
Startup America is a White House initiative that includes a venture capitalist based corporate counterpart, Startup America Partnership. Although it uses the word “startup” in its title, it is not about startups at all. Their stated focus is existing 3-12 year old (not startup) businesses, what they call “speedups”, that want to become giant corporations.

Scott Case, the CEO of Startup America, the White House press releases, and the mission statement of Startup America all say repeatedly that Startup America is not focused on small business in any way. Scott Case says Startup America is focused solely on “giant businesses that just haven’t scaled yet.” And they go on to describe them as companies that are up to 12 years old that want to be giant corporations. These are not startups by any definition.

Sadly, Startup America and Case have a demeaning view of small business owners who actually create the jobs. Case says, “Small business owners, if they fail at their first attempt, they’ll immediately go take a job in their industry.” After saying they’ll fold like a cheap suit when under pressure, he also labels them all “mom and pops”, a belittling description.

This contempt and disregard for small business owners isn’t new. Politicians on both the left and the right are largely addicted to big and have no regard for the small and local businesses that are the engine of job creation in America. No one in Washington on either side is a true advocate for the small and local business owner.

It is always “big” (big business and/or big government) that gets us into economic messes, and small and local businesses and local government who get us out of them. Kauffman has put the full weight of their research behind this fact.

Small is Bigger than Big
Small and local business is the engine of our economy and the source of 99% of job creation. It’s too bad that both sides in Washington are addicted to big, because the biggest thing we have in America to solve our problems is 28 million small businesses.

Government Killed Small Biz Jobs on July 15

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And the SBA is non-responsive.

In April I shared Why Small Business is Fed Up With Government – both sides are addicted to “big”. That addiction continues to escalate and hurt small businesses nationwide. And a Washington Post survey say you’re tired of it.

In early 2009 both sides declared the 19 largest banks “too big to fail”, and vowed at every photo op to change that. It was the political buzz-phrase de jour for a few months designed to make us “small” guys feel like someone was looking out for us while they gave hundreds of billions to their big business friends.

Today, three years later, those same few banks now control an even LARGER percentage of the banking industry. That’s how big government dealt with the issue; with their handouts they made the banks even bigger and an even greater national security risk for us. They assumed we would go back to our pitiful little lives and ignore them.

In 2010, Olympia Snowe, the self-styled Republican Senate advocate for small business, introduced legislation to kill the only small business loan actually designed for very small businesses. She had championed the loan through Congress, but received strong opposition from her big bank friends as well as her big government friends. She showed that her allegiance is to the bigs.

And now, in the midst of the biggest recession in history, government is killing small businesses with new regulations. On July 15, the State Department introduced requirements that forced small businesses to put as much as $500,000 in escrow (a business I know would have had to escrow that amount), and leave it there for 12-24 months without touching it.

This drove thousands of small businesses under in only a few days. The big businesses swooped in behind like vultures on a wire and took over all the customers these small businesses had cultivated for decades. They couldn’t get back in business now if they wanted to. Big government now has fewer, bigger clients to regulate. All the bigs are happy.

How did our government help the little guy with this? The business owner and I approached the SBA Office of Advocacy on July 11 and sent repetitive requests for intervention, the very thing that this bureaucracy was designed to do. For 24 days we received no response to many emails until July 29, which was a very unprofessional reply making the SBA out to be the victim. Since asking us a question on August 4, we have again received no responses to many more emails over the last 15 days. Simply inexcusable for an agency supposedly designed to advocate for small business.

Giant business and giant government got us in this mess, then turned around and looked behind and asked us to get them out of it. But they don’t invite us to the table to help them see how to do it. We couldn’t possibly know – we’re small and they’re big, and big knows better than small. Washington has Jeffrey Immelt, former CEO of GE who paid no taxes last year, in charge of fixing this. He, too, has no clue what a small business looks like.

Talk to any banker who used to give small business loans, and they will tell you very quietly and in complete anonymity that the reason their lending standards are beyond the reach of most healthy small businesses is because the government regulators are putting such pressure on them that they can’t adopt REASONABLE (not loose) lending standards. 73% of small businesses who need capital haven’t even bothered to apply because they know it’s useless. 48% who do get rejected – astonishing statistics. The 25 biggest banks control 32 percent more deposits than they did in 2006, but made 30 percent fewer small business loans.

This is your small business advocacy in Washington. In case you wondered if anyone is looking out for you, the small business owner, on either side of the aisle or in any of the halls of the giant bureaucracies there, you might think again.

I’ve said this in dozens of places on the internet for three years – access to capital is the #1 issue for small business and has been since October 2008. #2 is predictability from our govt., and #3 is regulations that hurt small business and help the big ones. The SBA says the #1 job growth sector is businesses with 1-9 employees and the #2 job growth sector is 10-19 employees. Then they, the rest of the government, and the giant corporations who all got us into this mess, continue to use this crisis to help each other just get bigger. Expect large donations from giant corporations to both sides next year.

Small business doesn’t want a bailout. And I personally don’t have time for recessions – I have somewhere I need to be with my business. None of the above make it impossible to succeed, but it does make it harder. And when government proactively kills jobs and small businesses like the State Dept. did on July 15, that is interventionism in commerce that is unacceptable and needs to be addressed, even if the SBA doesn’t have the spine to do it (in case you wondered, the SBA isn’t focused on small businesses under 19 employees).

Caveat emptor – for too long we have bought that someone in Washington is looking out for us. Think again. You won’t get help and you don’t need it. You can succeed without their help; just know that they are not in Washington to make it easier for you, but to make it easier for themselves and their giant corporation donors. It’s time to expose the game for what it is, one “big” scratching the back of another “big”, all at the expense of 28 million small businesses and the American economy.

This isn’t a lack of courage to act. This is simple self-preservation at work – both bigs (giant government and giant business) will protect their “bigness” at any cost, even the worst recession in history. And certainly without blinking an eye at the demise of small businesses.

Don’t take advice from T-Rex.

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Run, Gazelle, run!

The overwhelming majority of small business advice is from people showing us how Giant Corporation, Inc. managed to free themselves from the drudgery of being small to finally become “great”. It’s time these patronizing forces understood that small business and big business are two entirely different animals.

The assumption is that a small business is just a big business that hasn’t grown up yet. We’re the adult, you’re the infant. We know what it takes to grow up and we’ll be glad to share those secrets with you young ’uns.

But the problem is that we aren’t a big business that hasn’t grown up. These are two different animals. It’s like saying when a Gazelle grows up it will become a Tyrannosaurus Rex, so all we need to do is show it what T-Rexs do and eventually it can become a T-Rex, too. There are 28 million “small” businesses in America and only 17,000 with over 500 employees. These modern day monsters are telling the rest of us how to do something none of us want to do – become them.

Small business is uniquely different than big business in just about every way: how we market, advertise, sell, build relationships, live locally, adjust fast, move with agility, find vendors, do accounting, love employees, relate to customers, etc. They are two entirely different animals.

But there is an incessant parade of articles, books, papers, and research of giant businesses with the intent of showing us small business people what we can look like if we grow up and become T-Rex. I’m really over reading “How Giant Corporation, Inc.” finally freed themselves of the burden of being small, and grew up.

Most of us don’t want to be a T-Rex and for way too many, the parade of big business advice to their supposedly infant T-Rex brothers simply confuses the small business Gazelles who are trying to apply it.

We need to stop teaching small business owners to stomp through forests and eat everything in its path. Small business advice and examples of what to do should come from small business Gazelles, not from lumbering T-Rexs. They are two different animals with entirely different sets of requirements, processes, paths, motivations, and outcomes.

Be careful where you get your advice on how to build your business, and especially don’t take it from the “Bigs”. You could end up with a T-Rex telling you how to be a Gazelle.

Why small business is fed up with government

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Both sides are addicted to Big.

What really grinds the gears of small business owners is the near-complete inattention by lawmakers on who creates jobs.

So said Kimble Fletcher Ainslie in a Cato Institute article from December 20, 2001 titled “Bush Ignores Small Business.”

Eight years later under a different president, Catherine Clifford’s article in CNNMoney.com on September 30, 2009 continued the criticism of lawmakers ignoring small business:

Business owners really bring out the pitchforks when they consider the speed with which billions of dollars were distributed to large Wall Street firms and banks. That is what sticks in the small business owner’s throat more than anything.

Banks received $700 billion dollars in handouts in October 2008, with almost no regulations or restrictions. In February 2009, big businesses and big state governments received $787 billion, an incomprehensible $1.5 trillion total dollars. General Motors alone received $30 billion dollars when they would not have qualified for a credit card.

The top job provider in the U.S. economy is businesses under 10 employees. Those with 11-19 employees are second. Seventy-nine percent (79%) of all businesses in America have less than 10 employees.

In February 2009 while big businesses and big state governments were receiving $787 billion, the politicians threw a $255 million bone to small businesses in the form of the SBA ARC loan program, providing a potential $35,000 for a business that could get one. That’s 2/100th of one percent of the $1.5 trillion dedicated to the single largest job growth sector in our economy. While giant banks and corporations got handouts and bailouts many times in just a few days, the first ARC loan didn’t get processed until June 2009, five months later. By December 2009, only 45% of that tiny amount had been loaned.

Adding insult to injury, in December 2009, Republican Senator Olympia Snowe, a self-proclaimed small business advocate, introduced legislation to kill the program and return the remaining 55% back to the Treasury immediately.

Small business owners are not fed up with the government because they don’t get handouts. They are fed up with the symbiotic, parasitic relationship between politicians, big business and big banks. It’s hard enough to grow a small business. Swimming upstream against the constant deluge of advantages, handouts, bailouts, special loan programs and preferential treatment given to big businesses is the real rub.

The mis-named Small Business Administration is of no help. When the SBA was created in 1953 the big business lobby got their political friends to define small business as any business with under 500 employees, which is 99.94% of all businesses in America (only 17,000 of 28 million are larger than 500 employees). It’s like calling everyone under 7′ tall “short”. So it’s no surprise that almost all of the SBA’s attention is on businesses that are 6-7′ tall. Businesses under 5′ 4″ aren’t on the radar. So even with the SBA, true small businesses are on the outside looking in.

In 2009 Australia passed the Fair Work Act, legally defining a small business as having fewer than 15 employees. A similar law in the U.S. would be a good start. Then small business needs the creation of a real SBA, not so they can get handouts, too, but so they have a seat at the table to level out what has been an un-level playing field for decades.

The big business-big government parasitic relationship has been exposed by this last recession. It’s time to put an end to all the patronage that goes between the two of them, all to the detriment of true small businesses.

Big is Not Small

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Help stop the SBA madness.

I’ve never used my blog to directly advocate for an issue, but the SBA’s long-term focus on big business has moved from absurd to something there is no word for. I don’t want more handouts. I just want them to stop giving them to big businesses, and expanding to include even more big businesses to give handouts to. Help us stop it.

The SBA lost its way at its inception in 1953 when politicians bowing to big business interests defined “small” as any business with fewer than 500 employees. That is 99.9% of all businesses, a ludicrous and meaningless description of small. This happened because big businesses lobbying their politician wanted to make sure they didn’t get left out of the handouts. As a result, the SBA focuses almost all of its attention on larger businesses from 100-500 employees. Only 17,000 of the 28 million businesses don’t qualify!

They are now expanding the definition to include 9,450 of those 17,000, because large businesses with 400-500+ employees are once again growing huge and don’t want to be left out of the handouts that were set up to encourage small businesses to compete against the Bigs.

We can stop this nonsense. What can you do? Go to the SBA site here and submit the following objection, or your own. They must post them publicly and enough complaints will get their attention and require a response.

Rasmussen (a polling company) says the traditional three classes in America – rich, middle class and poor, have now been replaced by only two – The Ruling Elite, and everyone else. We have become a nation ruled by the Bigs who have completely lost touch with who they exist to serve.

But in the Participation Age we are now in, you can make a difference. Go to the SBA site and let them know a “small” business has fewer than 20 employees, and to stop expanding to serve their big business cronies.

Copy the following, fill in the contact info on the SBA site here, and paste the following or your own objection. Let’s begin to create a voice for small business at the table of the Bigs.

COPY THE FOLLOWING:

The existing SBA definition of “small” includes 28 million out of 28 million businesses (only 17,000 are left out). It’s like saying all people less than 7’ tall are “short”. Your continuing expansions move it to 7 1/2’ tall people.

How can you claim to serve small business when you include 99.9% of all businesses, and want to increase that to 99.95%? No understanding of “small” justifies these increases, and only goes to demonstrate that the SBA does not have a focus on small business.

In 2009 Australia passed the Fair Trade Act that formally defined “small” as “under 15 employees”. Even that would still include over 80% of all businesses in America, but would be a much more realistic definition of “small”.

I hereby formally request that you defend your definition of “small” against the commonly held understanding of the word “small”, and either
a) Reduce the standards by nearly 2500% (from 500 employees to 20) to reflect a realistic understanding of small, or
b) Rename yourself the Mid-to-Large Size Business Administration (MLSBA).

See the Miriam Webster definition of “small”:
1 having comparatively little size or slight dimensions
2 a: minor in influence, power, or rank b : operating on a limited scale
3 lacking in strength – a small voice
4 a: little or close to zero in an objectively measurable aspect (as quantity) b: made up of few or little units

  1. How does “comparatively little” describe 99.9% of all businesses?
  2. How does 99.9% reflect “minor in influence, power or rank?
  3. How is 100-500 employees “lacking in strength” when compared to the 80%+ businesses with fewer than 10-15 employees?
  4. How is 28 million out of 28 million “little or close to zero”, or “made up of few or little units”?

I look forward to your formal public reply.

Gandhi – “Anyone who thinks they are too small to make a difference has never gone to bed with a mosquito”.

Thanks for making a difference!

Bismarck had it all wrong – Retirement blows chunks.

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Shut up. Sit down. LIve invisibly. Go out quietly.

I’m working on my third book “Retirement is a Bankrupt Industrial Age Idea” and the research confirms everything I’m seeing in the world around us – the title of my book reflects reality. We’ve got to rethink the whole idea.

The Industrial Age, which is a very short 175 year snapshot of life in the last 10,000 years, left us with a lot of great toys and a luxurious lifestyle, but we’ve paid dearly as a society for it. The whole bankrupt idea of retirement is one of those casualties. You should get a Business Maturity Date instead.

Retirement – The Worst of the Industrial Age
We were sold a bill of goods by Bismarck who thought up the crazy notion of retirement in 1889 (he set it at 70 when the average age at death in Germany was about 49). The entire idea is only 121 years old – for 10,000 years before that we did just fine without it.

It is the icon of the worst of what came out of the Industrial Age – “Shut up, sit down, work hard, live invisibly, don’t talk back, make the company successful, be loyal, and go out without making waves. We’ll take the best 45 hours of your week and the best 45 years of your life, and if you survive all that, we’ll let you do something significant with your life when you’re done.”

The Next Generation Has Already Opted Out
The X,Y and Z generations know this is bankrupt. But they’re still hearing their mothers voice in their ears telling them that the top three priorities in life are safety, security, and stability – all three which are deadening to the idea that anything significant will happen in your life.

Great reward only comes from taking a risk – it doesn’t even have to be a great risk, just take one.

Big Business is Dead, Long Live Small/Local Business
Retirees who bought the lie know by experience it isn’t working. There is a better way. Fortunately the world is actually going back locally.

The era of big business is as dead now as the railroad was in 1903 – neither one of them knew it at the time, but it’s over. Long live the local business owner, which is exactly what they will do – without the bankrupt notion of retirement and all it represents hanging over them.

Read more on what Rieva Lesonsky says about the retirement myth here, then come back and talk with me.

Here’s some ways to solve it, too.

I believe you will enjoy life more, have more fun, relax more, and probably even take more vacations if you never retire. Love to hear if you think I’m nuts.

The Problem of Big

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I’m a Smallist.

In 2009 our economy was rated by the National Security Agency as a higher threat to our national security than terrorism. One side blamed big government and the other blamed big business and big banks. But virtually no one was angry with local business or local government. This is very instructive as to where the problem is and where the solution lies.

It is universally accepted that “too big to fail” businesses that are cozy with big government who will bail them out are the cause of recessions, and small business brings us out of them with no assistance whatsoever. Yet both sides patronize and ignore small business and are committed to big business or big government getting even bigger.

The issue is not with capitalism, free markets, government systems or bureaucrats; the issue is simply “the problem of big”.

Macro-Decisions for Micro-Problems

One problem with “big” is that both giant corporations and massive federal government make macro-decisions (national) to solve micro-problems (local), and every time they do it, somebody gets left out, hurt or dismissed as decisions are made to benefit the 80% and ignore the 20%.

The other problem with big is that Macro-capitalism results in the accumulation of wealth and decision-making in the hands of a very few people in business, and macro-government results in the accumulation of power and decision-making in the hands of a very few politicians. And as we’ve seen throughout political history, the reality is that these two “bigs” have a parasitic relationship that both sides use regularly to preserve and grow their own centralization of wealth and power, all to the detriment of local business and local government.

Local Business and Local Government

Does small always work better than big? No. It is easy to find both local businesses and local government that make self-preserving decisions that aren’t in the best interest of their employees or customers. But the negative affects are not as damaging and are always more apparent. And removing that local politician or shunning that local business is a lot easier.

Micro-solutions for Micro-problems

Even with the best of intentions it is simply too big a task to ask macro-entities to solve local problems. The problem isn’t government or business, but simply the size, massive reach and slow-grinding gears of both.

We need to return to local government and local business for answers to our local problems, and push as many decisions down the food chain as possible. This is difficult for both national politicians and big business leaders because they lose control over their own macro-wealth or macro-power. There is a place for both big business and big government, but I believe we would be better off and safer as a nation with less of both.

Big is Still the Problem

Neither government or business is inherently good or bad, but the bigger any system gets the more difficult it becomes for it to truly serve those in the system. Our economy would flourish with more and smaller competition, and societal problems would find much better solutions closer to home than in D.C. This is why I’m such a fan of local businesses and local government and am so committed to seeing them both flourish.

My focus is to take local businesses from survival, through success to significance. The better we do this the more partners we will have to solve local problems and create great local communities everywhere.

A Business Plan Will Not Make You More Successful

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Palo Alto Software, which makes business planning software, just did a survey to their own users to show that those who completed business plans that they started with Palo Alto were nearly twice as likely to successfully grow their businesses or obtain capital as those who didn’t finish.

This research is a classic example of “there are lies, damnable lies, and statistics” (stolen from Twain who got it from someone else). An even more reasonable conclusion – people who DO SOMETHING and follow through on it are twice as likely to successfully grow their business.

My second book (to be published in December 2010) is titled “Bad Plans Carried Out Violently” and promotes the idea that DOING SOMETHING trumps pre-planning almost without exception. I’ve talked with hundreds of successful business owners and asked them two questions:

  1. Did you do a business plan before you started your business?
  2. If you did, how well did it project what actually happened over 1 yr, 3 yrs and 5 yrs?

The number of successful business owners who do a business plan before starting their business is statistically insignificant – well less than 1%. The only reason the small minority gave for doing one is because they had to in order to get money from a bank or investor (almost no one does one just for themselves). That should tell you something about the classic “pre-planning” Business Plan we’re all taught is so important.

Of those very few that did do a Business Plan before starting, virtually none of them say their Business Plan projected accurately what actually happened in the next 12 months, or 3yrs or 5 yrs. To the contrary most said their Business Plan was wildly off from what actually happened in the real world.

The conclusion is that successful business owners don’t do a classic Business Plan unless banks or investors are involved, and that they never look at it after that. So it has real value for getting a loan, but not for running a business.

Stop planning and get moving! Do a simple 2-page Strategic Plan and revise it every month with the input your business gives you – you’ll be better off.

“Committed Movement in a Purposeful Direction” and “Implement Now. Perfect as You Go.” – two concepts from my next book – are much more instructive to success than pre-planning. Knowing the end goal is extremely important – knowing beforehand the path for how you will get there is fortune-telling.

See the new book from 37Signals called Rework for others affirming this as well.