Showing the Way

Down at the Karate school we have a saying that you should look to those who've already found success for encouragement. The path to earning a Black Belt is a fairly long and difficult one. Not everyone makes it. Often the journey is made more difficult by the student's friends and family who are "just trying to protect you from disappointment" after all "you've tried stuff in the past and always given up." Guess who provides the real encouragement?

Those who've already reached Black Belt.

I've begun to see that this is also true in the business world. In my experience here in Ann Arbor, at any rate, those who've built a thriving business are the ones who are most likely to offer ideas, encouragement and mentorship.

I actually met two such folks today.

At a recommendation of a friend of mine, Carrie Hensel of Inner Circle Media, I called on Kevin Phillips and Debra Christein Copperstock of LTI Information Technology. When I asked them about growing and running their very successful business, they started talking about their planning processes, the classes they'd taken, and the directions they were planning for their LTI, IT. They even showed me some of the documents that they had created to chart their future directions.

To put it bluntly, I was completely overwhelmed by their generosity of spirit. I walked out of there feeling excited about the prospect of working on my business and charting out the future for Cyber Data Solutions, LLC. Many thanks to them!

So, who have you met recently who completely blew you away with their generosity?