Carolyn Jack

Editor and CEO, Geniocity.com
A project of The Genius Group LLC

A brain trust keeps your own working better

“Good morning, Mr. Phelps. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, will be to start a small creative company with insufficient capital and no staff during the worst economic period since the Great Depression. You must be everywhere at once and do everything yourself and, if you have not made a profit by the end of the allotted mission period, you – and not this tape recorder – will self-destruct in five seconds. Good luck.”

Good luck, indeed.  Even the best-prepared entrepreneurs have got to have some, or their work will literally be “Mission Impossible.”

I’ve had good luck. Not yet with money or markets or personal fame – my good luck has been to discover a number of friends who try to help me succeed. 

These particular friends all started out as business acquaintances of one sort or other – one is a former source of mine from when I was a reporter, another two are people whose professional services I’ve used and a couple more are colleagues. I had a friendly, enjoyable but intermittent relationship with each, to start with. I never expected more.

So I was surprised and grateful when, independently, each one of them started forwarding useful information to me, checking in periodically to see how things were going, offering to introduce me to good resource people and generally spreading the word about my business. A few of them have actually gotten involved in what I’m doing and frequently help me by listening to my concerns and offering advice and ideas. 

And every time they do those things, I’m astonished and touched all over again. They make such a huge difference to my effectiveness and morale that they are becoming indispensible, like a team of personal advisors or cabinet officers who will set me straight or cheer me on when I most need it.

Entrepreneurship can be a lonely occupation, so it’s wonderful to feel as if I’m not totally by myself, especially when I need to weigh difficult decisions or situations. And even though creativity seems like a naturally solitary kind of work, I find I’m most fired up imaginatively after I’ve spent some time talking and trading ideas with other inventive people.  

So I thank them often for their smarts and their support. And I hope continually that I’ll be able to repay their confidence in me by succeeding. Because of them, that mission – on most days – seems to be getting a little less impossible.