Many years ago, I had the occasion to coach young boys in a competitive baseball league. When I was asked to coach I did so with the idea that I would teach baseball in a manner that taught young boys how to lose and win.  As we all know, being a winner is quite a bit of fun but what happens when you don't. Many kids today and back then in the mid 90's were always told how good they were.  God forbid if a player ever felt bad. What a crushing blow it would be to the self-esteem.

With my coaching plan well thought out I assembled my team, clearly outlined the rules and then braced for the blow back that I knew would occur when my players failed to win. You see, I accepted a number of boys who would not be front line players on most teams. My goal was to get us to .500 for the season. We practiced hard, ran fundamental drills at every practice and kept everyone active the entire time. Then came time for us to suit up and get between the lines.  The time had come to compete. Sometimes we were really good and sometimes we were really bad.  Never did quite reach that level where you are always close to winning. It was an either or for us

As expected, losing created discontent and when that sets in all focus is gone.  You must know, my boys were 13-14 playing on regulation major league fields for the first time.  When teams lose players who are not regulars get a bit uncomfortable sitting on the bench. With limited playing time they feel confident if given a chance they can make the difference. It never works out that way.  They are not front line players for a reason.

After a rather long losing streak I decided to teach one of life's lessons to a young group of boys who no doubt lacked the capacity to understand what I was about to tell them.  Anyway, I took the plunge. I gathered the team for a meeting and simply told them that before you get upset about lack of playing time, losing or any other event they perceived to be negative I shared one of my keys to success. Do Your Best! Life's Not Fair!

By way of explanation I said if the 10th player is sitting on the bench he thinks it's not fair. If I made him the 9th guy and the 9th guy the 10th then he wouldn't think that was not fair. The point is very simple. In some way life is always unfair so get over it. Just keep working hard and some day you will enjoy success. It may not be in baseball and there may not be any understandable return on your effort. But, what you are doing is building an important work ethic, a positive attitude and an understanding that without effort nothing is possible.

It has been years since I coached those boys. You wonder how they turned out. I learned that one of the boys played baseball for several more years, some in college. I heard that he penned one of my comments to him in the bill of his baseball cap; to remind himself of the positive words I once shared with him. There have been a couple other stories that have come back to me.  It is rewarding to think that some of those young boys embraced the message.

In my personal life and business I work hard to maintain that same focus. I always try to do my best and I understand completely that life is not fair. No, I don't think anyone is purposely doing anything to inhibit my success (maybe someone is but so what) people are just going about their own busy lives trying to make a living.  So, you keep working hard, do your best and everything else will take care of itself.

A final thought. Realize that many things are bigger than yourself. Pay forward as often as you can it enriches your life!

As the main writer of this blog I wanted to share a number of ideas and stories that relate to business.  If you are a small business owner like me you remain on alert for exciting ways to broadcast your message.  You are not going to have a large marketing budget, cold calling is just not happening, now, automated emailing is creating as much resentment as robo calls.  So, how do you grow the business?  Simple, don't give up! 

The drive and desire that got you this far may just carry your forward.  You probably thought I might say that your drive and desire will get you to the finish line but yet, there never is one; is there? Think about it.  If you reached a finish line how much fun would that be? 

I have had friends who started businesses and closed down after 3 or 4 years.  I told them they needed to stay in for 7 years maybe even longer.  Achievement is HARD WORK!  If success was easy everybody would be there! 

So, you go about your day-to-day business and constantly look for that one big break or search for the one opening that will provide the advantage you need. No matter how hard you try it just doesn't seem to show up.  Or, maybe it has and you just haven't seen it.

To keep my field of vision wide and alert I subscribe to several very different newsletters and sites that have some very cool and cutting edge points of view. Many have nothing to do with my company's actual service or products and that is the important message.  Stretch the field of vision. Stay engaged and excited.  When a down time hits just do something to break the rut.

On a relatively frequent basis I receive interesting material from friends and relatives that help me keep things in perspective.  It is my long held contention that my success and happiness depends upon a very simple motto I follow.  Do your best...life's not fair! I try to remain alert to my motto.  It still needs to be polished off a bit every now and then.  With that in mind, I wanted to share an experience that was given to me by one of my groups of friends and family. This video clip is a stunning example of how unfair life can be and why you should never give up. Click here: Are You Going to Finish Strong? - Video  - Enjoy

Steve Tabeling

Founder & Chief Innovation Officer

File Link Business Systems, Inc.

So, when does the entrepreneur spirit emerge.  It's hard to say, but maybe the groundwork is laid, like most things, at a very young age.

My father was a police officer with 4 kids and an occasional pet running around the house.  Mom stayed at home to raise us while dad went to work.  All very typical in the 50's.  But me, I am the one who was the challenge. Always curious about things and interested in stretching the limits whenever I could.  Mom would punish me and when dad came home from work he would pardon me.  To me, an occasional time out in the bedroom and separation from everyone else just gave me more time to think about the next adventure.  Turns out, punishment was really my planning time.

As a police officer my father didn't make much money but the bills got paid, kids were fed and life went on.  Christmas was always an exciting time for me. We'd walk to the church parking lot on Christmas Eve to purchase a tree for $5.00.  Dad always said a tree could never come into the house until Christmas Eve.  What I learned many years later was no surprise.  The tree rule was just a way for him to spend as little as possible-Charlie Brown had nothing on our tree.

Since there was little money Christmas presents were always very practical.  A coat, a hat and gloves, sometimes one big item, a bike, a race car set and one year, a coin operated....PARKING METER!!!  What in the world was a 6 or 7 year old going to do with a coin operated PARKING METER?  I think this is when I learned that I was an entrepreneur (of course I didn't know it at the time and I could have never even spelled the word) and that Christmas I raked in the dough.

My parents had a New Years party and all of their police friends came to the house.  Many adult beverages were being consumed that evening.  My sisters and I were sent to our rooms early that evening. I think we weren't supposed to see adult misbehavior.  After several hours of partying our one bathroom on the second floor of our house experienced a steady flow of activity. It occurred to me that I had the perfect opportunity to gain more happiness than I ever imagined.

I emerged from my bedroom with my parking meter in hand and setup my stool outside the bathroom door.  Everyone who entered paid a toll.  That meter was humming.  That is until one of my patrons shared the story with my father.  Well, I made a few bucks, got sent back to my room and everybody had a good laugh.

At some point in time there will be a moment when you look into the other persons eyes and notice what appears to be a distant gaze or maybe it's the onset of the flu, that glassy eyed look you get just before the fever attacks every part of your body.  But then you realize, the person looked healthy before I started talking to them, what happened?  It came to me.  It's the Fish Eye!

The Fish Eye is a syndrome that may be induced by an ineffective or confusing sales event. The syndrome has been known to manifest in social settings or between family member's during the obligatory holiday gathering but in one revealing incident it became clear to me that I infected my client with Fish Eye.  She was polite when we first met.  There was a friendly chat for a few minutes and then I began my sales presentation.  The topic was document scanning and my plan to simplify the workplace.  After several minutes I began to notice the early on set of Fish Eye.  My congenial host stopped blinking. She leaned back ever so slightly in her chair.  The head began to turn to one side and raise upward and was accompanied by a downward gaze towards me.

My presentation continued but my subconscious was sending alerts that something was going wrong. Finally, it came to me.  My prospect most definitely had Fish Eye and it was my fault.  The only question rattling around in my head, while I continued with my presentation, was what could I do to treat this poor woman?  Humor is always good medicine.  So, I abruptly halted my presentation and in an effort to stop the syndrome before it spread.  I looked into the fishy eye and said, "do you have any questions at this point?" She said, "no I am just trying to understand how all of the steps you described actually work." At this point it is important to note that I discovered Fish Eye in 1997 so in all fairness to me it would not be unrealistic to expect that anyone hearing my presentation would be uncomfortable with the abstract nature of the material.  Document scanning was just emerging as a business tool, so, many were completely unaware of its advantages and seemed more interested in details. 

I was not successful in landing this account but I did learn quite a bit about Fish Eye Syndrome.  Since that time no other's have been infected and now every presentation is presented with more visual queues and examples. Even though I seemed to have wiped out Fish Eye, I move forward with caution and great attention to my prospect because I have to be ever alert for any new syndromes I might create.