When you want something, you go after it. You survey your goal and you assess your talents and you formulate a plan of action to use your specific skill-set to take what’s yours. Being honest with yourself is of the utmost importance. If you delude yourself in to thinking that you can casually get what you want without even trying, then you set yourself up for failure. Know your limits, understand your weaknesses and plan around them.

I can not stress how pivotal it is that you be honest with yourself. Every business needs a person who can be depended upon and not someone who misjudges their ability to the detriment of the group. Consistent accomplishment is always praised higher that wild speculation.

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One of the most important skills that a businessperson can have is the ability to look at your work and realize what needs to be changed. A creator can not be beholden to every concept that comes from them. The greatest directors know that a certain amount of what they shoot has to hit the cutting room floor. When you formulate a strategy, you must be able to  examine your idea with an objective eye.

An alternative to this is to have someone you trust take the role. If you’re too close to the project, it’s always preferable to have someone else give you their opinion of how to trim the fat. So long as you listen to that person you will most likely be doing the right thing, even if it hurts to modify your work. Never underestimate the importance of a fresh perspective.

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In business, just as in life, failure is inevitable. You will make mistakes. You will falter. You’ll chase bad ideas, and let good ones pass by. And just as in life, your business depends on whether or not you were able to learn from what happened, and make sure they don’t happen again.

With each new step along the path to building your empire, you must be able to look at the steps before, whether they were forward or backward, and put what you have learned into effect. Only by looking back are we able to move forward.

What have you learned from your mistakes, and how are you going to implement the knowledge in the future?

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A friend once told me a very inspirational quote:

“The man who moves a mountain does so one pebble at a time.” – Confucian Proverb

I’ve tried to remember this as I’ve grown my brand and my businesses. Anyone that knows me knows that I started on the bottom; my best friends and I made hats in my house in Hollis, Queens. I personally traveled across the US to cities like Philly and Detroit with icons like LL Cool J and RUN D.M.C., and sold my own products piece by piece. Those were my pebbles, and I’m still moving my mountain.

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