The Obstacles In Our Life

There once was a very wealthy and curious king. This king had a huge stone placed in the middle of a road. Then he hid nearby to see if anyone would try to remove the gigantic rock from the road.

The first people to pass by were some of the king’s wealthiest merchants and courtiers. Rather than moving it, they simply walked around it. A few loudly blamed the King for not maintaining the roads. Not one of them tried to move the stone.

Finally, a peasant came along. His arms were full of vegetables. When he got near the stone, rather than simply walking around it as the others had, the peasant put down his load and tried to move the stone to the side of the road. It took a lot of effort but he finally succeeded.

The peasant gathered up his load and was ready to go on his way when he saw a purse lying in the road where the rock had been. The peasant opened the purse. The purse was stuffed full of gold coins and a note from the king. The king’s note said the purse’s gold was a reward for moving the stone from the road.

This story underlines a principle that many of us never understand: every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve our condition.

The Loser Who Never Gave Up!

When he was a little boy his uncle called him “Sparky”, after a comic-strip horse named Spark Plug. School was all but impossible for Sparky.

He failed every subject in the eighth grade. He flunked physics in high school, getting a grade of zero. He also flunked algebra and English. And his record in sports wasn’t any better. Though he did manage to make the school’s golf team, he promptly lost the only important match of the season. Oh, there was a consolation match; he lost that too.

Throughout his youth, Sparky was awkward socially. It wasn’t that the other students disliked him; it’s just that no one really cared all that much. In fact, Sparky was astonished if a classmate ever said hello to him outside of school hours. There’s no way to tell how he might have done at dating. He never once asked a girl out in high school. He was too afraid of being turned down… or perhaps laughed at. Sparky was a loser. He, his classmates… everyone knew it. So he learned to live with it. He made up his mind early that if things were meant to work out, they would. Otherwise he would content himself with what appeared to be his inevitable mediocrity.

One thing was important to Sparky, however, drawing. He was proud of his artwork. No one else appreciated it. But that didn’t seem to matter to him. In his senior year of high school, he submitted some cartoons to the yearbook. The editors rejected the concept. Despite this brush-off, Sparky was convinced of his ability. He even decided to become an artist.

So, after completing high school, Sparky wrote Walt Disney Studios. They asked for samples of his artwork. Despite careful preparation, it too was rejected. One more confirmation that he was a loser.

But Sparky still didn’t give up. Instead, he decided to tell his own life’s story in cartoons. The main character would be a little boy who symbolized the perpetual loser and chronic underachiever.

You know him well. Because Sparky’s cartoon character went on to become a cultural phenomenon of sorts. People readily identified with this “lovable loser.” He reminded people of the painful and embarrassing moments from their own past, of their pain and their shared humanity.

The character soon became famous worldwide: “Charlie Brown.” And Sparky, the boy whose many failures never kept him from trying, whose work was rejected again and again,… is the highly successful cartoonist Charles Schultz. His cartoon strip, “Peanuts,” continues to inspire books, T-shirts and Christmas specials, reminding us, as someone once commented, that life somehow finds a way for all of us, even the losers.

Sparky’s story reminds us of a very important principle in life. We all face difficulty and discouragement from time to time. We also have a choice in how we handle it. If we’re persistent, if we hold fast to our faith, if we continue to develop our unique talents, who knows what can happen? We may end up with an insight and an ability to inspire that comes only through hardship. In the end, there are no “losers”. Some winners just take longer to develop!

Now, experts Agree that more companies face an unstable business environment. Improvements in data processing and
telecommunications have made significant changes in most industries. In addition to this, improvements in transportation and the
growth of foreign economies (specifically in Europe and Asia) have generated a global market and surpassed certain businesses.
Additionally, as consumers are exposed to more choices, loyalty has become less significant than it once was; a marginally better
deal or a temporary shortage of inventory can easily lead to the loss of consumers. Competitors can also alter quickly, with new
ones emerging out of nowhere (often this means another side of the world ). With the instability of the global market, it's
important that you make tactical planning part of your overall business strategy.

Proactive Versus Reactive Management. A couple of years ago, you can establish and maintain a business by reacting to and meeting
changes in preferences, prices and costs. This reactive style of direction was often enough to keep the business going. But, today
changes happen fast and come from a number of directions. By the time a reactive supervisor can make the necessary alterations, he
or she may lose many customers -- possibly for good.

Proactive Planning is the anticipation of future events. Decisions are based on predictions of future states of the environment as
opposed to responses to various disasters as they occur. Proactive planning within an unstable, technology-driven small business
environment is important to continuing success in almost any endeavor. As opposed to responding to this situation as it changes,
proactive planning requires that you analyze environmental forces and earn resource-allocation decisions. By doing this you will
take your business where it needs to be in another month, decade and year. Barry Worth, a consultant specializing in small
business management, puts it this way: Now's entrepreneur has to be a business architect. Anything constructed in the present
business environment must have a step-by-step blueprint or plan on the best way best to achieve success. The blueprint for the
business owner is a company program.

The Want For a Strategic Plan. Planning has a significant role in any business venture. It may make the difference between the
success or failure of your business. You need to plan carefully before investing your time and effort, especially, your cash in
any business enterprise. The demand for a strategy is best illustrated by the following scenario -"A Tale of Two Firms."

Two franchises (B and A ) were launched by people who had worked in management in much bigger businesses. While Franchise A
supplied a item and Franchise B a service, the output of both franchise systems were sold exclusively in the USA before the
present owners became involved. The output of the two was readily available in other developed nations as well. The franchises
opened about the exact same time and franchisee had a strong market presence, nor do they present. Now Franchise B is bankrupt. By
comparison, Franchise A is promoting products in the Midwestern United States and in Europe.

What was the Deciding difference from both franchises' achievement? You probably expect it to be that you had developed a
strategic plan and the other had not; however, it isn't this simple. Several factors can influence the result of a business
venture. There were lots of similarities between the franchises, but there were also many differences.

Most notably, Franchise A sold a solution and Franchise B per service (although this doesn't clearly limit choices ). The other
difference was that Franchise A had a carefully thought-out plan. The investors understood as they looked for a franchise partner
they desired to find something that could satisfy global markets and a franchiser who'd encourage that kind of sales effort. These
investors were based in the Midwest, but negotiated for exclusive rights to export the franchiser's merchandise. After they had
acquired the franchise, and as they began to launch their business domesticallythey also began to contact authorities specialists
in the U.S. Department of Commerce and educators and local managers with global experience.

Clear plans Were developed outlining how they would place, promote and distribute the solution and which foreign markets will be
targeted . Even as they had been building sales in a single European market, they had been attending trade shows and preparation
entry strategies in others.

By contrast, The next investor (Franchise B) started his business strictly because he wanted to leave a former employer. Of course
many small businesses get started this way; however, in this case no evaluation of marketing options was done. The business has
been located in an area which, as it turned out, contained virtually no customers for the type of support being supplied. When
this error was accomplished, it had been too late to move--the investor simply didn't have the money or the desire to risk
starting again.

Other examples Further demonstrate the demand for strategic planning and for developing a clear business strategy. Whoever owns a
company that appeared to be performing quite well in just two locations was about to open in a thirdparty. The writers were called
in to create a benefits plan and discovered cash flow conditions that may be found just after operations had started in the new
location. After analyzing the circumstance, an expansion and fiscal plan was designed for the sound locations only. In another
case, the authors decided that a company had purchased more equipment than was necessary to accomplish the current workload.

After careful Analysis, plans to make additional purchases were put on hold, along with the equipment available was used
effectively to meet immediate needs.

A business Enterprise is to complicated to assume that failure to come up with a solid business Plan is going to be the cause for
problems But this failure often counts Among the variables contributing to business issues. As Worth has said, "Being a business
entrepreneur today takes constant vigilance to be able to Be able to benefit from new opportunities and the availability of new
Technology and information as they come into being." Step one in Doing so would be to have a plan.

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