9 Themes
1. Learning.
There is consensus amongst the podcast guests that there is no formal education that can fully prepare you for the realities of business ownership. Owning a business is the education and learning happens at every turn. There was even one story shared where two business partners agreed that a money losing situation that resulted in lessons being learned would be tracked as “tuition” in the expense statement (I recommend speaking to your accountant before doing this).
2. Mentorship.
This comes up a lot. Sometimes guests shared the strategy of engaging mentors intentionally and others were less intentional but could identify those that have guided them on their journey.
3. Purpose before profit.
This is probably my favorite theme and one that likely resonates with most listeners. The idea that the motivation for many (if not all) of the guests is the purpose of the business, not the money they make. They are all driven by why they started the business, the profit comes if they continue to be motivated by the purpose.
4. The human element.
There is often this disconnect between the business and the business owner - by employees, shareholders, consumers, etc - leaving those around the business owner to forget that they are human and are impacted by the difficult situations that affect the people around them. Decisions are not made in the absence of emotion and an appreciation of this humanizes the business owners to those around them.
5. Scaling.
There is a lot of discussion about growing the business. Sometimes it is growth strategies that didn't work, sometimes it is fear of growth, sometimes it is effective scaling - planned or not.
6. Growing for growth's sake.
This ties back to the scaling topic and was something that I experienced so can relate when guests discuss it. Measure business growth by a healthier bottom line or balance sheet rather than simply by the number of employees, size of the office building or number of locations.
7. Throwing good money after bad.
The idea of knowing when to abandon something that isn’t working, whether an expansion, new product line, or even just the original business, it not doing what the owner expected and not knowing how to change course.
8. Work/life integration.
Business owners commit a lot of time to running their business and this often calls into question how they balance everything. In an early episode a guest shared this idea of work/life integration (it's not about prioritizing the business over other things like family), it's about integrating the business life with everything else. This has carried on throughout whenever the discussion of work/life balance comes up.
9. The power of luck.
This one is not discussed outright in any episode (I don't think) but it is certainly a theme. There are so many instances in any business journey where luck plays a part, whether it is obvious at the time or not.