Page 26 - Midas Touch

I was anxious to learn this lesson. I had seen my own dad—who was an
honest, hardworking, and well-educated teacher and administrator—
become raw meat once he left the safety of the school system. He had run
for lieutenant governor of the State of Hawaii as a Republican. He lost the

election and became unemployed in his early fifties. Taking his life
savings and retirement money, he purchased a famous ice cream franchise
and lost everything. Simply put, he was safe as long as he worked for the
school system, a system he had been in since the age of five. The moment
he stepped outside the system in his early fifties into the real world of
business, he was eaten alive. In less than a year, he lost everything he had
worked for his entire life.

This is why emotional maturity and strength of character are essential in
the world of entrepreneurship.

Murphy’s Law
Most of us have heard of Murphy’s Law: “Anything that can go wrong will
go wrong.” Most entrepreneurs fail because they simply do not know what

they do not know, and they fail to fail fast enough to discover those things
they need to know. In other words, success comes from failure, not from
memorizing the right answers.

This is why so many so-called smart, well-educated people, like my dad,
do not do well in business. They are smart in the world of the classroom,
but are not smart in the world of business.

The Definition of Success Is Different

Success in the world of the classroom means not making mistakes. When
your report card is perfect, you get an A+. The opposite is true in the world
of business.

If you take a look at most MBA programs, the focus is on minimizing risk
and not making mistakes. This is why so few MBAs become

entrepreneurs. Most get their MBA with the hope of becoming highly paid
employees. The same is true with law school and accounting graduates.
They are trained and paid to not make mistakes.

To be successful in the world of entrepreneurs, especially in the early
stages, a person must learn to fail, correct, learn, apply what was learned,