No one thinks running a small business is easy But even so, there are forces that pull you in all directions. These five forces almost seem to tear at us as we go through our daily work. It's not just a question of coping with the forces. We have to somehow make them part of our lives. Let's find out how. ============= Read Online: How To Cope With The Five Forces of Business: Part 1 ============= In this episode Sean talks about Part 1: What are the five forces of business? Part 2: Why it is a question of management? Part 3: What sucks up the most time in business? ============= In December 2015, I attended a workshop in Nashville, Tennessee. The workshop itself was very tedious. There were endless slides, countless examples of TV commercials and no breaks. However, there were these long lunch breaks that spanned almost an hour and a half. With little else to do after lunch, I’d wander around the lobby looking at the signs posted on the walls. The signs were quotes from prominent American politicians. One of them was attributed to US President, John F. Kennedy. It simply said:“If not us, who. If not now, when?” No one seems to know if John F. Kennedy said it or not. And yet, for me at that moment, the quote was relevant. I’d wanted to get certain things done. I’d wanted to write some specific books on talent; books on teaching etc. And this sign seemed to slap me in the face. If it wasn’t for me, who would do it? If not now, when would it get done? And yet here we are all these months later, and the battle rages on Many other projects got done, but some remain almost permanently on the to-do list. How could I, I wondered, make things happen? It was time to take stock. I soon realised that business—at least my business—had five permanently competing forces. To achieve what I wanted, I couldn’t only focus on one and leave the others sulking in the corner. This wasn’t a question of focus, it was a question of management For me to feel a profound sense of achievement with every passing year, I knew I had to deal not with just one or two, but with all five forces of business. So what are these five forces of business? The first two involve learning. The third includes revenue and client retention. The fourth was critical, but often neglected “passion projects” and finally there was downtime. All five of these forces jostled for space, and every one of them was incredibly important. Let’s take a look at all five of them by listing them out, to begin with. 1) Learning by doing 2) Learning by learning 3) Revenue generation/client retention 4) Passion projects 5) Downtime The first force of business: Learning by doing Stop for a moment and think of something that kills 842,000 people a year. That’s a whopping 2,300 people per day. You didn’t think of water, did you? Water isn’t supposed to kill. It’s meant to give life. And yet it runs around day after day, year after year like a mutant Jack the Ripper. No one, it seems, is interested enough to stop this killer. No one, except Dean Kamen. “We could empty half of all the beds in all the hospitals in the world by just giving people clean water”, says Kamen. And Kamen is the one person who’s uniquely placed to take up this challenge. In Manchester, New Hampshire, where he lives and works, he’s known for the invention of the Segway, Ibot Transporter – a six-wheeled robotic “mobility system” that can climb stairs, traverse sandy and rocky terrain, and raise its user to eye-level with a standing person. Kamen has over 440 patents to his name, but it’s clean water that got his attention. Which is why he set about creating the “Stirling engine”. The “Stirling Engine” is so amazing, it can generate clean, drinkable water even from water contaminated with mud, even bacteria-filled human faeces. For most people, creating products of such grand simplicity would be an insurmountable barrier, but Kamen’s team at his firm, DEKA, soon came up with a working machine. A machine that only needed the pow