Business Inspiration

I never thought I would get Business Inspiration from a motorcycling magazine, but it just goes to show you that when your mind is in an inquiring mode, you can find inspiration almost anywhere. There are many times, when working your small business that you may find that you have lost your inspiration. Times are tough, the daily grind gets in the way, bills rear their ugly heads and you wonder...why am I in business for myself??? It is times like that when you should have a source of inspirational articles or inspiring people to look towards.

This week I found business inspiration in the most unusual place, the American Motorcyclist Magazine, specifically the February 2010 issue. Please don't get me wrong, this is a great magazine, fun to read, loads of good articles, but in this issue one article in particular really resonated with me. The article was about Bob "Hurricane" Hanna who is a member of the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame. People who earn any sports Hall of Fame are people who I am interested in learning more about, but I was particularly enthralled with the interview in the February 2010 issue.

Bob Hannah was a motocross racer who won seven AMA National Championships along with a bunch of other championships. He raced pro for 15 years and then when he retired, did not just go back into the motocross sport as a coach. He started his own aviation company, Bob Hannah Aviation. What was most interesting about Bob Hannah was not that he started his own company, but more importantly, his views on life and on business.

When he was racing motocross, he was known for his single-mindedness on winning. He made sure he was as fit as was absolutely possible, always looking for ways to be in better shape than any of the competition and he never gave less than his all to training and competition. Bob Hannah carried that competitive attitude through to his business and has not compromised anything.

He believes in doing what he wants to do, daily. He states, "Yesterday is over. There's only today and tomorrow. And I'm always thinking of tomorrow." How many times do we lose sight of our tomorrows when we are struggling with our businesses today? As when he was racing motorcycles and then planes, he practiced for all contingencies, including equipment malfunctions. We need to remember to do that for our business also, nothing will ever go as planned but with proper planning, we can overcome unexpected problems.

Bob Hannah believes that if you are even partially good at what you do, with the right training, planning and effort, you stand a pretty good chance to succeed. You don't always have to have the raw talent to succeed, just the absolute desire to succeed. He never considered himself talented, but with a lot of practice and training he learned how to do things and succeed at them. Bob Hannah has no regrets, he has done what he wanted, he dedicates 100% of himself to the particular task. Even as he is working on one task, he continues to look ahead to the next one and the next day.

We should all take an assessment of where we are in business and perhaps we can use some of Bob Hannah's wisdom to help renew our business inspiration.

Until tomorrow...