“When I face the desolate impossibility of writing 500 pages, a sick sense of failure falls on me, and I know I can never do it. Then gradually, I write one page and then another. One day’s work is all that I can permit myself to contemplate.”
John Steinbeck, Jr., American writer.
Here’s the thing: You may not see your business like Steinbeck saw writing a novel, but certain aspects of process aren’t that different.
For example: You have to imagine a future. Maybe not the entire future, but you have to see where it is you (as the protagonist of your story) are going. You need to be able to improvise scenes. Communicate. Trigger the emotions of buyers and sellers.
But most of all: You can’t do it all at one time. Building a business, like crafting the Great American Novel, is an incremental process. You don’t sit down one day and decide to build your empire. You sit down and try to make a little progress down the road. Clients become friends, friends become your advocates. Each sale and each relationship is a chapter in what you hope to make a best-selling series.
Do a little today. Do a little tomorrow. Do that every day. Before you know it, you’ll be one of the great masters in your market.
