PROVEN STRATEGIC NAVIGATION

Wealth is often used as a measure of success. It’s a very poor yardstick. This was blatantly obvious when sailing around the Balearic Islands.

Any spectacular looking and expensive vessel would soon be upstaged when next to an even more beautiful and costly vessel, and be rapidly outshone. There’s always somebody wealthier – and not always through entrepreneurship.

Sailing inspires many successes and insights. I wrote about some of these last year: 10 things sailing teaches you about business.

This year, our annual sailing trip was a particularly ‘#epic’ journey. My wife, children (8 & 4 years old) and I sailed without crew from Marina di Ragusa in Sicily to La Linea de Concepcion, Spain, (next to Gibraltar); 1,300 nautical miles in 22 journeys over 26 days.

The many successes of this journey included overcoming the unknown and constant unpredictable circumstances. We were challenged mentally and physically and were fortunate to be able to savour our changing environments and new experiences.

For me, the additional achievement was reaching the halfway point of a very slow circumnavigation, which started from Auckland, New Zealand, 12 years ago. During this time, I’ve mentored many businesses in Australia and Wales and continue to see them, and the Indycube Ventures portfolio, grow.

The many measures of success include achieving different goals in their respective time frames. Success is valuing yourself to pursue your many goals in all areas of your life and making a positive difference to others. Being entrepreneurial and running your business efficiently and effectively and serving your customer’s needs allows for this.

In my opinion, entrepreneurship is about problem-solving, making a difference and making the best decisions with the available information at the time. Michelle Obama said: ” Success isn’t about how much money you make. It’s about the difference you make in people’s lives”.

When you set goals for yourself and your business, remember ‘turnover is vanity, profit is sanity and cash is reality’, but satisfied customers are the most important measure. Satisfied customers spend more money. Making money is a consequence and certainly not the absolute measure of success.