Chapter 1. Know yourself

The courage of life is often a less dramatic spectacle than the courage of a final moment; but it is no less a magnificent mixture of triumph and tragedy.

- John F. Kennedy

How persistent are you?

Have you ever completed a jigsaw puzzle on your own? I went through a phase a few years back where I liked to do jigsaw puzzles. After helping my daughter with a 500-piece puzzle, I was drawn towards doing a larger, 750-piece one. I then moved on to a 1,000 piece, 1,500, 2,000 and then a 3,000-piece puzzle. I did a few more 3,000-piecers. A certain satisfaction came with snapping that next little piece into place. Some pieces almost fall into place effortlessly, others were so difficult, I was convinced the Jigsaw Puzzle Fairy was dropping pieces that belonged to a different puzzle into the unused pile while I slept. Intellectually I knew of course every piece did indeed belong to the puzzle I was working on, but emotionally there were those little frustrations that made the task all the more interesting. Overall, I found the repetitive, slow progression of assembling an image to be meditative.

A 3,000-piece jigsaw puzzle is not twice as difficult as 1,500-piece one. Yes, you have twice as many pieces, but the average number of pieces you examine before you place one is also twice. Mathematically, then, a 3,000-piece jigsaw puzzle is at least four times more time-consuming than a 1,500-piece jigsaw puzzle is. Getting my product to market felt a lot like doing a huge jigsaw puzzle; one with a lot more than 3,000 pieces of course, but the inner sense of journey was familiar.

I recommend you get a good 3,000-piece jigsaw puzzle and complete it. It is ok if someone helps you a little but do make the job yours. If you complete it, you have the single biggest ingredient necessary to getting your product idea to market: persistence.

Some evenings I did not want to face the never-ending task of completing my product. Other evenings it seemed like I was making such good progress, I did not want to go to bed. You will have difficulties in your product creation journey too. Some days you will be making such poor progress, you’ll feel like you’re going backwards or you’ll feel like your product will never see the light of day. Other days, you’ll see the horizon for miles in every direction and the universe will conspire to make it all work in your favor. That is the journey that is ahead of you; great speed on some days, nasty traffic jams on others and it is what everyone feels on the journey. We product creators are not divided into those who have an easy time of it and those who have a tough time. No, we are divided into folks who complete the task of creating their product and folks who do not. Difficulty is in the nature of product creation and it is difficult for every product creator I have ever met. In fact, when you reach an impasse, regard it not as a threat to your success, but rather a great way of thinning out any competition that might follow.

• If you do not find it difficult, you have not taken on enough of a challenge for customers to be interested.

Most people will finish a 100-piece jig-saw puzzle, but few have the patience to complete a 3,000 piece one, not to mention a 12,000 or 18,000 piece one. It’s the same with creating a worthwhile product.

I never knew a man come to greatness or eminence who lay abed late in the morning.
- Jonathan Swift

How do you respond to loss?

Everyone has a preferred way of responding to the pain of loss. If you do decide to pursue your product idea, you may succeed or you may fail, but one thing is certain: you have a lot of pain ahead. So, how do you normally deal with pain? If you have ever lost someone near and dear to you, or have had other significant loss or pain in your life, what did you do to process the pain? How you answer this question is central to how you will cope on your journey to turn this idea of yours into a product. If you are the spouse of the person with the Big Idea, then answer the following question for them. In fact, if you are the guy with the Big Idea, ask your spouse to answer this following question; don’t try to answer it yourself.

Examples of loss:

- Losing a parent

- Losing a bunch of money in the stock market

- Discovering you need to go on serious medication for high cholesterol (loss of youth)

- Getting a performance review that says you have underperformed (loss of idea about yourself)

Question: How do you respond to loss? Which of the following activities do you tend to engage in when you are faced with such loss: (check all that apply)

· Head to the gym

· Head to the liquor cabinet

· Go for long walks

· Talk it out with anyone who cares to listen

· Look for a reason why someone else is to blame

· Get verbally abusive

· Become depressed

· Look for the silver lining

· Smoke cigarettes heavily

· Eat more than usual

· Draw, paint or write

· Engage in another hobby

Building a product from scratch involves, more than anything else, a lot of persistence. Your brilliant idea has never been a product and no one has ever made, sold or purchased one. The universe does not like change so it will throw many obstacles in your way along your path. Many obstacles will involve losing this or that opportunity to make your product a reality, forcing you to come up with perhaps more difficult, time-consuming or costly alternatives.

You might have the right temperament if you (or your spouse on your behalf) circled 1, 3, 4, 8, 11 or 12, because you tend to rely on healthy means of coping with loss. Healthy responses to loss make it more likely that you remain strong and willing to drive your idea forward.

• Successful entrepreneurs look for the opportunity in loss.

How do you respond to an unpleasant surprise?

If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right.

- Henry Ford

Consider the following unpleasant surprises:

- Your car runs out of gas

- You discover you’ve put on 10 lbs

- You discover there is no milk left for your cereal

- Your joint credit card bill is twice as high as you expected

- You wake up to discover you have a nasty head cold

- You cut your finger while emptying the dishwasher

- You didn’t get that promotion you expected

- Your favorite white cotton y-fronts just turned pink during a clothes wash

How do you tend to respond when something like that goes wrong? The answer to this question might not be what happens in the very first few seconds, but rather what tends to be your response about 10 minutes after the unpleasant event? Circle either 1 or 2.

a) I am angry with the person who made this happen.

b) I am looking for a way to avoid making this happen again.

If you answered b), you have a key characteristic of successful entrepreneurs: You tend to take responsibility for problems that occur and you tend to look for constructive solutions to them. If you answered a), you might have a habit of blaming others for things that happen to you and you invest your energy in unconstructive emotional relief rather than looking for a path out of your predicament.

If you are considering building your product from scratch, b) is a preferable answer to a).

If you did answer a), all is not lost. There are ways to reshape your thinking so that it is more positive.

Along the road to making your product a reality, you will be faced with countless little unpleasant surprises. The faster you come round to looking for a constructive solution to every one of them, the faster your product will reach the marketplace and the more likely that will happen before you run out of time, money or opportunity.

• Successful entrepreneurs do not see a setback as a failure. They see it as an interesting challenge.

Cost of this stage: $0. Costs so far: $0

End of chapter exercise

This is the first chapter with questions at the end of it. Write down the answers to the following questions. Better, write them down on a piece of paper and set the piece of paper aside for the moment; we will return to it later. (Avoid writing on the book itself if you plan to sell it or give it away later).

Even if you do not know exactly what the answers are, do take a stab at an answer to each question. The purpose of these questions is not to test your knowledge; it is to get you thinking about the important questions.

With respect to reaching the significant milestone of having the first salable product in your hand:

• How many months of elapsed time do you expect it will it take to have the first salable product in your hands? _____________________________
• How many hours of work will you personally invest in this before you reach that milestone? _____________________________
• What special skills would someone need to deliver a product like yours? _____________________________
• Do you expect to have to go overseas to manufacture your first batch of product? _____________________________
• How will you prevent your designs from being copied by someone else who might then compete directly with you? _____________________________
• What is today’s date? _____________________