Don't Go Stupid While Building Your Online Business

January 9, 2008 by Kenton Newby

If you didn't know already, I was an officer in the Air Force for just over 8 years. The other day I was thinking about some of the stuff we learned back then in my career field. One day we talked about how certain types of "smart bombs" worked. In this case, the gist of it is that a laser is reflected off the target and that reflection is picked up by a little doohickey in the nose of the bomb. That thing is tied to the fins on the back of the bomb that guide it down the path to the target and adjust it's course to the left and right. At least I think that's how it went…it's admittedly a little fuzzy in my head but that explanation serves our purposes here.

So if you looked at that path of this thing as it's coming down towards Mother Earth, more than likely it would be a series of zig-zags to the left and right combined with being too high or too low at any given time. Bottom line is that the thing is almost constantly off course, overshooting or undershooting the target and has to continually correct course in order to hit the bullseye.

What can we learn from this as entrepreneurs? Well…

Notice that the bomb doesn't go a little off course and decide, "Hey, this just isn't working. I don't wanna' hit that target". Nope, instead it immediately takes action to get back on course. Then inevitably…whoops, over-corrected and off course again. Time to get back on course again.

That's the same way we need to be as entrepreneurs. Have you tried something related to your online business that didn't work as well as you thought it would, or that was a complete disaster? Did you immediately take what you learned from that experience and get back on course? Or did you go "off course" saying "This stuff doesn't work" and other such nonsense.

Note: On those occasions when a so-called "smart bomb" does end up going off course, the pilots say that one "went stupid".

Bottom line: Most of us get from point A to point B in a series of zig-zags rather than a straight line. When you find out you zigged when you should have zagged, get back on course and don't "go stupid".

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