Why is this chapter 0? Because everything starts with circles, and everything circles back.
When we imagine a journey to entrepreneurial success, we often picture it following a straight line from the outset. That line is marked by a series of steps to get from here to there. We rely on these kinds of lines everywhere in business: profit-margin graphs, business life cycles, and project-schedule charts. We want that line to steadily move upward.
As a successful wealth management entrepreneur, I have learned that the reality of the business world is much less straightforward. After all, entrepreneurship isn’t just about starting a business—it’s about running one. Everyone who wants to achieve something great in life experiences side journeys, setbacks, and opportunities. We have to be ready for the curves that business throws at us.
We need to recognize that to get to our best, we have to constantly revisit our choices, change and rebuild our initial skill sets, and come back to our clients. It’s a process of incremental change, and that means looking both forward and backward simultaneously. Entrepreneurship is a long game, and it requires us to create clear boundaries between what we
want and can do and what we should leave to others.
That’s why entrepreneurship, if it’s done well, is all about circles. A circle is the shape of a lens that helps you focus on what matters. It’s also the most efficient, economical shape:
the least perimeter for the most area.
And life, as we all learn, also goes in circles. Your family circle, your circle of friends, your business circles—they all exist within the sun’s ring of the day, the moon’s ring of the
month, the Earth’s ring of the year. Past, present, and future connect in a circle.
This book connects my past, our collective present, and your future.