I’ve wanted very badly to have my own successful business and worked tirelessly for the past several years to do just that.  I’ve had very little success in doing so though.  Actually I’ve mainly just lost tens of thousands of dollars trying to do so.  The truth though is I wouldn’t trade the experiences I’ve learned for anything.  They have been completely invaluable.  I’ve seen friends put a fraction of the effort into their businesses and been instantly profitable, but I’m not even remotely jealous (OK sometimes when I’m tired of the constant grind I am).  But honestly, these hard knocks lessons I’ve gotten will prove priceless in the future and I want to share them with you here…

The Book That Started It All

Back in 2007 I had an interview in Aspen, Colorado.  I bought a book to read on the plane called the Four Hour Work Week.  This 300+ page hard cover book was the inspiration that started it all.  The Four Hour Work Week is hands down the best written book I’ve found on time management and goal setting.  It’s all explained from the perspective of leveraging a small company (aka muse) to meet your financial goals and attain more free time in life.

Running a company is something that had always interested me.  As a kid I ran a small business selling vegetables out of my parents garden but as I grew older I seemed to forget about my business building passions.  I simply dismissed them and felt as an adult it was my responsibility to build a career in corporate america.  After setting the book down for the first time since running that vegetable stand I was full excitement about starting my own business again.

The mere title “Four Hour Work Week” eludes to easy money though.  And I have to disclose to you I’ve found no such thing.  Heck it’s been anything but and I think you’ll see that over the next series of articles I write sharing my musing adventure with you…  The journey has actually been full of dead ends, piles of money lost, and tireless hours of work.   But it’s been incredibly rewarding in terms of lessons learned, friendships forged, and growing as an adult.

And should I give it all up, it’s made my completely priceless in corporate america.  I can now sit down with owner’s of companies and speak directly to their needs, empathize with their concerns, and really make a difference for them.  I’ve found that business owners and friends alike are now coming to me more and more to call upon my lessons learned.  So let me share them with you here as well.

My First Muse, Instant Stretch

After finishing the book I immediately did the goal setting exercises, which are by far the best I’ve found yet.  I now perform his dream lining exercises on a regular basis.  My first set of goals was to build a successful business, finish graduate school, and buy a corvette.  I was able to complete the later two goals shortly after finishing the book.  However, the first still eludes me to this day.

The first muse was called Instant Stretch.  I’m a huge fitness buff and I noticed that people neglected stretching the most and I felt a simple stretching routine would go a long ways in their fitness.  I also noticed that people who did stretch didn’t stretch consistently creating imbalances in their body which were leading them towards soreness and injury.

Product Development and Testing

So I teamed up with a good friend of mine who’s also a highly successful independent trainer to design the stretching program.  Our goal was to have a balanced program that could be performed in a couple minutes by persons of any fitness level, required no equipment, and could be performed in minutes.  Over the next few weeks we created the program…

• I bought a domain and drafted some marketing materials after a famous internet marketer’s work, Eben Pegan.
• We both wrote the script for the training program.  I converted the script to a webpage, PDF, and then bought a video camera and filmed it as well.  I cut the video using a free copy of Microsoft Video and DVD maker.  I created one version of the videos for DVD(s) and another for various personal video players such as the Ipod and cell phones that supported video.
• I burned an initial lot of the videos to DVD(s) with all the materials.  This initial lot was given out in a limited distribution to my friend’s trainees as well as my friends and family.
• Then we revised a second version based off feedback from the initial distribution.

Fear of Success

We had sold a few copies of the DVD and I just stopped there.  I had heard from family & friends that I’m going down a shaky road.  That I need to have LLC(s), liability insurance, disclaimers, etc. etc. etc.  And quickly became paralyzed by fear.

Looking back that was really a silly excuse and probably wasn’t the underlying issue for my quitting.  I had launched a product.  Shown that it could sell and had some success.

I think the underlying issue and my cause for giving up was to avoid disproving my previous successes.  I know none of us have this on the front of our mind it’s always something else that comes up like the fear of legalities.  But ultimately looking back that was probably the reason for quitting so quickly.

I know we had a product that could help individuals and the feedback from my limited distribution was good.  The program is still backed up on my computer and I may pick it back up again and run with it.  But I’ve since dabbled in a bunch more muses and learned volumes more which I’ll talk about in the next few articles.

FYI.  If you buy the book I like so much above I make a small commission.  But then again you probably already knew that and honestly it’s a pittance.