4 success habits of entrepreneurial activists

There was an audible gasp in the Prosperous Author workshop when speaker Jerry Gillies told the audience, “Buy one hardcover book every week. Support the industry you want to be part of.”

Seems to me that the skeptics missed the point. What Gillies suggested was quite elementary: go beyond lip service and actively support something that matters. If you’re an author, don’t you want to see a lively publishing industry? If you’re a self-employed person of a different sort, it makes sense to support others who have taken this alternative route.

When enough people get involved, it can turn into a movement. Consider the growing number of folks who think of themselves as locavores. This interest in building self-reliant food economies by consuming things that are locally grown keeps spreading because individuals took up the cause.

What are the success habits of entrepreneurial activists? Here’s my short list.

1. Instigate.
   The late singer John Denver once confessed, “I was always waiting around for somebody to do something about the world. Then I realized nobody is coming to save me. It starts with me, where I am.”

   Activists don’t wait around for opportunity to show up on their doorstep. They look for what’s missing and get busy filling the gap.

   Adopt a protégé, organize a meet-up, share what you’ve learned about social media with a local group of businessowners. Keep asking yourself my favorite question, “How can I make it better?” and then follow the answers that you get.

2. Circulate.
   Your entrepreneurial success will expand more rapidly and easily if you actively support other joyfully jobless folks. Sometimes that means spending more to purchase a book from your independent bookseller or a tool from the neighborhood hardware store.

   I like the perspective on this from Veronique Vienne. She writes, “The goods we get in exchange for what we pay are only a small portion of the full value of a transaction. A chance to put money back into the economy and give it to deserving people or causes is in fact an important part of the equation….Can you remember how you felt the last time you bought overpriced lemonade and cookies from a seven-year-old sidewalk vendor? Or how proud you were when you got a painting directly from an unknown artist and paid fair market value for it? Or how good it felt to buy a favorite niece a quaint dollhouse made of wood by a local craftsman instead of a plastic one with a clock tower and three-door garage?”

3. Collaborate.
   Business partnerships have a success rate lower than marriage, which doesn’t bode well for permanent relationships. If Lennon and McCartney couldn’t make it work, we need to rethink that model. (And if you have a fabulous business partnership, bless you.)

   Collaboration, on the other hand, can be a terrific alternative that generates fresh thinking, new ideas and synergy. It reminds me of the first trip my daughter took to Europe when she was in college. Although the adventure was originally supposed to include several friends, the others dropped out so Jennie set off by herself. However, she met solo travelers along the way and would sometimes spend a few days on the road with her new companions. Then they’d go their separate ways.

   This works just as well in business.

4. Celebrate.
   Yesterday my granddaughter went off to kindergarten dressed as a cheerleader. What was the occasion? Happily, Zoe has a teacher who loves to catch his students doing something right. When that happens, he adds marbles to a big jar. Once the jar is full, the class gets a special treat. The first time around it was Pajama Day and everyone arrived in their night clothes. This time is was Costume Day.

   When you’re self-employed, sometimes the victories are known only to you. That doesn’t make them any less important. Find ways to celebrate even small advancements. Fill up your own marble jar.