Life at the top

The entrepreneur's absolute priority is to stay at the top of his creation, to remain in control, until his planned liquidity exit. Many business owners start small and soon become inundated with routine and trivial activities, reacting to the random events as they occur instead of creating a business which executes the Plan. The success of the business depends on keeping the entrepreneur from the trivial and this can only be done by creating the Plan, and Delegating the activities of the Plan.

The primary activity of the entrepreneur must be to delegate, and therefore to recruit and provide motivation for others to carry out the Plans of the business. Many inexperienced owners look at new employees as expenses to be avoided, but the astute owner will see great opportunities by recruiting good people and paying them well for helping achieve the goals of the business. Again, Delegation is the primary activity of the entrepreneur. People must be there to execute the delegated activities of the Plan.

The business must provide the entrepreneur with steady, comfortable income as soon as possible in the life of the business. Many new business owners look at their pay as coming last, if at all. When the owner pays himself first, he will be more focused on creating a healthy, consistently productive business. Consider the example of flying in a commercial airliner, with a young child in your custody... you are advised, in the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, to put your oxygen mask on first, and then put a mask on the child. The absolute logic in this approach is that you are of no use to the child if you lose consciousness first. The business is yours, and you must bend it to your will. It must provide your paycheck above all. And so you must create a business which will do this.