Business Accounter: How to Enjoy More Entrepreneurial Success by Increasing Your Know-How with Practical Learning

Many people would like to start their own businesses and prosper.Unfortunately, few people are properly prepared to succeed as entrepreneurs.Before starting a new business, gaining any practical knowledge they lack, learning what would pay off in producing better growth, profits, and cash flow, would help new leaders to succeed.

To understand what kind of education new business leaders need, let's consider how successful new ventures were once directed.With little to guide them other than the stars and moon, early Polynesians traveled thousands of miles from island to island for trade or to find better places to live.As preparation it's hard to imagine they learned much general theory about celestial navigation.Instead, the training was probably aimed at being sure that a boat could get from island A to island B.

In mapping the western United States, surveyors relied on Native American guides to lead them safely through trackless expanses of wilderness.Those guides, too, relied on practical learning about how to traverse the continent.

Such pathfinders knew to pay attention to their surroundings and how to interpret what they saw to direct their efforts.They often learned by traveling with older, wiser people and trying out their new knowledge under the careful guidance of those experienced people.

Let's look at a modern-day example of gaining and applying such practical learning to building a business.Dr.Tane Caesar helps companies deal with the perils of the ocean while constructing oil-and-gas platforms and pipelines under the sea.This modern day activity connects Dr.Caesar to his Maori ancestors who settled New Zealand after long, arduous journeys in small boats across the Pacific.

This modern-day voyager found that the right kind of learning can give him important business advantages.His philosophy of gaining new knowledge is practical: Any learning he does should directly put money in his pockets.That view reflects his deep suspicion of the formal education industry and his family's non-academic heritage.

This practical approach first served him well in recovering from some initial setbacks in life.Dr.Caesar left home at age 16 and had to earn a living on his own ...or he would suffer.By age 24, he had an importing business in Australia and was recently married, but a year later, the outlook was bleak.He was on the brink of bankruptcy, and the couple had to move to a trailer park, find jobs, and pay back their creditors.After Dr.Caesar discovered a talent for being a croupier, the Caesars succeeded in getting out of their financial hole.

Looking around for a better career alternative, Dr.Caesar discovered that being a deep-sea diver could provide a greater income and many thrills.Developing skill in this work, Dr.Caesar became a supervisor of diving teams.Building on that experience, he now provides health, safety, and environmental management consulting for diving-support vessels working on deep-water construction projects.

Obviously, he didn't learn how to do all of this on his own.Dr.Caesar supplemented his on-the-job experience with reading selected to help him with exactly what he needed to apply in his work.He prospered as a result of this practical learning.
Where does practical learning fit into his success?From his early family life and these work experiences, Dr.Caesar identified these five principles as critical to a leading a successful life:

Build spiritual strength (a perspective he gained from his mother)

Live according to your standards of personal integrity (a viewpoint he learned from his father)

Invest in your family and yourself through continual education to raise perceived self worth and earning capacity (as he has done)

Be self employed (as his parents were and he is now)

Invest in assets that provide positive cash flow that can be continually reinvested (as he has done by purchasing rental properties)

What's the most important goal in Dr.

Caesar's life?"Whether I die materially rich or poor, it will be the legacy of love and devotion to my family that will remain as my greatest accomplishment." That goal is worth remembering because many business owners find that their businesses receive more love and devotion than the owners' families do.

Dr.Caesar's search for valuable, practical learning led him to explore online schools.He selected Rushmore University and earned an MBA degree in risk administration, a subject of immense value to his consulting clients whose costly construction projects can flounder when management mistakes occur.

Reflecting on that practical learning experience, Dr.Caesar made a second educational investment, earning a Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) degree in risk management from Rushmore.Here is how he described the decision to seek a doctorate when he began his studies:

"Working as an independent consultant, my skills are sold for the highest agreed rate.

Limits do exist to what I can charge my clients; further academic achievement would allow my clients to justify paying me higher rates.Obtaining a doctorate and continuing to consult on oil-and-gas projects will maximize the earning potential for my company into the future."

He chose Rushmore for both degrees because "much of academia remains focused on the exam as the end result, rather than comprehension and individual ability to solve real problems.

While earning his DBA degree, Doctor Caesar was able to double his daily consulting fees because clients recognized the added value of his practical learning.

Since graduating with his DBA, his firm's earnings have almost tripled.

That successful profit-building experience increased Dr.Caesar's appreciation for the value of practical, applied learning.Here is what he had to say recently about his learning plans:

"Personally, I continue to hunger for knowledge and would like to continue with further degree programs focused on psychology.

As per the saying -- the more I learn, the more I understand how little I know."

With that open-minded attitude, it's hard to imagine that Dr.

Caesar's learning ...or the benefits he gains from learning ...will ever end.

Do you want to lead and profitably expand your own successful business?Here are some questions to help you make faster, surer progress:

--What are you doing to add practical learning that can be applied to increase the success of your business and your income?

--What more practical learning could you add?

--How can you gain this learning in ways that will disrupt your business activities as little as possible?

About the Author

Donald W.

Mitchell is a professor of entrepreneurship at Rushmore University, an online school, where he teaches how to create flexible strategies for businesses and nonprofit organizations.For more information about ways to engage in fruitful lifelong learning at Rushmore to increase your effectiveness and improve your career, visit

http://www.

rushmore.edu

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