Learn from a landscaping mentor

Like many of you reading this column, I got my start in the landscaping business with a single lawnmower, the belief that I could outperform the competition and the audacity to go for it.

A lot has happened in the 34 years since, but when I really drill down on what has enabled me – and virtually every other successful business owner I’ve had the pleasure of knowing – to succeed, I am struck by how large a role self-confidence and the willingness to take risks has played.

And history backs me up: Scroll through a list of the most wildly accomplished entrepreneurs in the world from Andrew Carnegie and Walt Disney to Estée Lauder and Steve Jobs, and you’ll find they all had these two traits in spades. I bet you do, too.

It’s also true that our greatest strength has the potential to become our greatest weakness if we’re not careful. As confident, risk-taking owners, we tend to think we have to have all the answers all the time, when in truth sometimes the best thing we can do is admit we don’t and seek outside perspectives. As my mentor Clay Mathile, the former owner of Iams, likes to say, “The hardest thing for an entrepreneur to say is ‘I need help.’”

Read the full story from the June issue here.