Build 1 from 6 Worlds

Lee Child said ”Hope for the best, plan for the worst”, which is also important for operating business. Everything won’t work out as planned. Most of the time, all pieces of the plan will not turn out as expected. The price of something could be more or less than expected, or response not matching expectations. This is a reason to gather information from 6 worlds. We surround ourselves with them.

The first is pessimistic that seek negative sides of the business. Details might decrease hope or confidence about the future or plans. For example, majority of business startups don’t last the first two to five years. This knowledge might make you lose confidence in your plans. But remember that every time you take a bus, or drive a car, accident can happen. But you still do it because you don’t let it stops you. Every failure happens for a reason, and yours won’t necessarily be the same.

The second is cynical. This is driven by self-interest or believe that others only focus on their own interest. It is filled with people that perform duties based on their own interests, regardless of the accepted standards. These people are skeptical, and can point out the negativities in any plan. An entrepreneur might be a cynic – to a point – when acting on a belief.

The third one is optimistic world, which is part of business. It is having hope and confidence about the future or success of something. It’s essential to all business owners. Without optimistic spirit, achieving anything might be more challenging.

The fourth is antagonizing. It oppose everything and/or is hostile to the business. They are totally opposing anything you want to achieve. They can rationalize their decisions, by emphasizing on how much you’d fail with your objectives. The best recommendation is embrace them, because when someone tells you, “that is impossible”, and you are thinking, “just watch me succeed”, it can be motivating.

The fifth one is a talkative world. They talk but does nothing to make it happen. They can discuss what you are going through without actually knowing anything about it. I am a total supporter of action speaks louder than words. It’s why I rather put all my effort into doing something, and let its success speak for itself.

The sixth is supportive and active. It is a fantastic world that most entrepreneurs use to provide the greatest result. A business need things that support its actions. There is nothing called “self-made”, because the self-made have some kind of support. For example taking a course from an expert about a topic relating to your success counts as support. Same goes to getting a loan from the bank. The term self-made means using what you have – literally everything – to achieve success. This means without any support – either academically or financially – even if it is because the entrepreneur has great credit.

These six worlds are methods for defining a customized world. Gather information from the worlds, and what they tell you about your objectives to define your own world. One great method is defining the world, without reading too much into all these worlds.

Pessimistic, cynical and antagonizing worlds are great places to identify risks. For example a cynical person can tell you that you are only in it for yourself. Acknowledge your interest in your business. People do act for selfless reasons, but sometimes we act for selfish reasons. An antagonizing world can help you define the threats against your business.

These are assessable risks, through what they say. Its likelihood and impact are still methods for rethinking the plan. Risks assessments help response to threats. You can mitigate risks (lessen its impact on your business), avoid it (planning in a way that exclude the risks), transfer it (asking a more qualified person to respond), accept it (do nothing to prevent it). Just because you identified and assessed 100 risks doesn’t mean all of them will happen. I have worked on projects where unexpected risks occurred.

Now that you have your world, exclude unnecessary ones. Someone once said, “Have the risk in the back of your head, but don’t let it be a driving power”. The positive and negative part of anything completes it. Acknowledge the negatives side, but don’t dwell in them. Some information in each world is relevant, and we can’t exclude unpleasant details. These information collaborate to complete our identity.

Everyone and everything has a flaw. Sometimes we only notice them during plan execution. Once we know excluded details in each world, rebuild it by picking pieces from good and bad. Every part of the world could be relevant, while some are irrelevant. Exclude irrelevant details. Pick and rebuild the world that suits the business. Once the world is created, remember that it might not be totally compatible with the real world. If the job was properly executed, the difference is redeemable with adjustments.

In conclusion, these six worlds are key components in building the world for a business. It collect information to create something that facilitate the real world being compatible with yours, while leaving room for adjustments.