hello my name is Gary Shotton and this lesson is about getting your business rolling how do you get started and I like to tell stories and making analogies and so I’m sitting here in my pickup truck you can see how I could turn my truck it’s kind of my office it’s kind of something that I spend a lot of time in and so I’ll be sometimes needing to make a phone call or a Skype call and I’ll just pull over to the side of the road and make that call and so I just thought I would use this as the analogy to my lesson today so I was talking to a group in Congo and we were using this truck and this thought came to me so how do you get your business rolling how do you get started well number one stop waiting for someone else I think that’s the biggest lie the biggest mistake most people make they’re just waiting and waiting and waiting and they wait a lifetime they’re looking for their opportunity and I’m not an advocate of just jumping out and doing radical or changes that are they’re not logical but at some point you’ve got to come to realization that waiting is not going to get it done you know I’m aware of different trainings if somebody was being attacked or a burglar came into your house or you had a some kind of a mass destruction going on they tell me that you better start doing something yourself don’t wait you don’t have time for someone to come in a couple minutes find something that you can defend yourself with if if there’s a major disaster and there’s thousands and thousands of people that are caught in the same disaster it doesn’t make sense there’s not going to be that many people to come help you you’re gonna have to start figuring this out yourself so in starting your business I guess I would say let’s meet common sense here but let’s don’t just wait and wait and wait you’re probably gonna have to take some action can you ask yourself that are you just waiting have you been waiting for more than six months but waiting for more than a year already been waiting and now things happening maybe it’s time to take a little action well number two almost every business is going to take some serious investigation and you know it’s one of those things that that if if you don’t work at finding out experimenting making things in an experimental stage or an investigation stage I don’t know that you’re able to write a business plan I had the blessing and an honor to teach how to write a business plan for many years to hundreds of people and the first section of those several years I look back and said you know I kind of taught them wrong I said do your research and then start writing your plan well do your research didn’t do your investigation what do you mean if you’re gonna make a cake for sell goods like a restaurant or our bakery go ahead and make a bunch of cakes in your kitchen go ahead and and experiment with your neighbors and your friends go ahead and do real-life investigation don’t just read it from the book it’s hard to write out a business plan if you really don’t know what you’re talking about so if you’ve got some investigation into it and you’ve reached out if you’re going to most you know one on one a landscaping business go volunteer to landscape somebody’s a house or or or their their business for little or no money just to get the experience do that investigation are you willing to step out maybe even with no pay to do some investigations I’m going to give some examples about this and a bit then you’ve got to understand about the law of physics if I’m taking this car and I’m going to drive you know right now the engine is not running and it’s extremely hard are almost impossible to turn the wheel right there I can turn the steering wheel a little bit a little bit but do you look outside the tires are not turning I can turn the engine on and I’m gonna have a little bit more power steering but if I don’t even have power steering then it’s real hard to turn if you ever drive a vehicle or a tractor or something without power steering it’s hard to turn that the laws of physics are designed such that a I object in motion is easier to keep in motion than it is to first get it in motion now there’s technical was a ways of saying that but that’s the truth you all know that if I had this vehicle stalled on the side of the road and I got three or four people to help me push it man that first push and I got a push and push and push push extra hard but after its rolling you don’t have to put quite as much energy on well that’s the way it is with your first business you get that thing rolling you have that and and that’s what happened I with those teaching setting this very chair in this same same vehicle talking to my our team our peer mentoring group in Congo and that came to me hey guys you got to go out there and do something do your investigation don’t call it a business to start with keep your mouth shut a little bit don’t announce things when you’re in the best investigation stage just investigate are you willing to do that well remember Jesus had his peer mentoring group of his 12 disciples and then they became the apostles and there was only 12 of them and is interesting that Jesus himself left this earth and said hey I’m gonna leave but then I’m going to send you the comforter the Holy Spirit to help you guess what you have that same Holy Spirit to your disposal as well you’ve got to learn how to use him how to work with the Holy Spirit how he’s gonna speak to you he’s probably not gonna call you up and talk to you with an audible voice he’s probably gonna give you if it’s like me it’s very quiet it’s very subtle it’s an idea many times it’s the first thing in the morning I think at home man in fact this morning I had to get up two hours earlier than then I normally get up because I I couldn’t sleep because I had so many ideas rolling around I had to go write something down are you willing to listen to the Holy Spirit and let him guide you and lead you he’ll save you a ton of time and a ton of mistakes now not everything is gonna be perfect you’ve got it even to experiment on how the Holy Spirit’s gonna lead you now another thing is people are willing to help you I mean you’re gonna be surprised how many people when you get in motion and you’re going down the road and you’re not begging for people and you’re not asking for money you’re just out there may in the cake cutting the hair building the fence whatever you’re going to try to do do that in an honest sincere way and you’ll be surprised how many people reach out and help you have you tried that and I’m just sure of that and and you know it’s just part of the entire process now I want to give some examples I moved to this town that I live in now and I was expecting at a really nice big job but the economy was bad I couldn’t get that job and I had a trailer had something I moved in with and it was pulled behind my car wasn’t a nice pickup like this it was a car and I did my investigation I said in this particular case I just needed out of necessity some money and so for almost two years I just had this idea I can make a little money and you know in the process it’s when that’s how it works many times it’s when you’re in motion and you don’t really see and know what the end result is it’s only when you’re down the path just a little way ways that it starts opening up and so over time I said well you know I think this could be a business and I owned that for 17 years I’ve put my kids through college I I reached out I was a giver to the gospel I did on mission trips and that was a good business that was a tough business because I had to learn a lot of hard lessons I’m going to talk about my friend Octavian he’s getting into the farming business now he has a background in farming but it’s new to him it’s a new country and a new culture but you know I’m telling you there are so many people willing to help him just because he’s in motion he’s doing something he’s not begging sometimes when they offer to help him he says well let me trade some labor if you’ll help me oh no no no that’s fine though he says I’m gonna come over and work at your place for two or three hours because I such appreciate you and in the gardening field and those people are so appreciative you just don’t know and there’s more people willing to help than you ever imagined once you’re in motion so you know steering a parked car pretty tough get a rolling get something moving don’t go big when you’re in this stage keep it really really small and investigate and grow step by step well I hope this has been helpful to you I sure enjoy talking to you about these and God’s blessing to you I’m sitting here in my pickup truck outside my house the sun’s just going down and I’m loving life thank you Up next