Thought
Phil Nassau
Leaders
Managing Director at ActionCOACH
Leading by example, one opinion, one idea, one lesson at a time, our thought leaders are significant in the Leicester and Leicestershire business scene. With authority in their field of expertise, passion for sharing ideas, and commitment to helping others, they’ve been asked to express their most current brainwaves in print. Selected organisations and individuals share how and why they go about their business, reveal their ambitions, provide clarity on matters within their industry, educate on complex or novel subjects, inspire with their forwardthinking and progressive perspectives, or look backwards to evaluate what’s been learnt.
Got something you’d like to see our team of thought leaders cover? Send your topics of interest to kerry@crossproductions.co.uk. 35 | NICHE
Never outpace your learning
I
n my professional life, business owners ask the same question over and over again: “How do you become successful?” Back in April, myself and 1,500 other business owners attended the BizX Forum and Awards to learn from the best of the best in business. There were a couple of common learnings. Firstly, those I spoke with all wanted to get better at doing business. Secondly, the presenters explained that they did not achieve their success easily – they spent lots of time learning, they talked to the best in their industry and kept pushing forward. Not one of the presenters were given their success; they all failed along the way but learnt from the journey, never allowing others to outpace them. So, how do you become successful? There are several answers to this question; the biggest is in the title of this piece. You have to learn business to become great at it. If you’re reading this, I’m
sure you are now thinking: ‘well you would say that!’ But if you want to be successful at what you do, you have to learn how. I believe many business owners are deluded – this is based on the belief that we often consider ourselves to be better than we actually are. Much like in life, when we are given an opportunity, we can often make the wrong choices and therefore don’t succeed in the way we’d hoped. When we admire highly successful people from afar, we tend to believe that they are just lucky, more talented than ourselves, or just in the right place at the right time. In truth, our lack of success is because of something we are not doing. In other words, our failure is not participating. Fear fuels the excuses in our heads about why we are not where we want to be. Continuing to learn is the key. If you want to learn more about business, talk to other business leaders and get a head start on your journey, to avoid being outpaced by those around you.
