It is often said that the finest sword is forged from the hardest steel and the hottest fires. The same way gold is purified in the hottest fire yet it is still one of the most expensive stones in the world. What this statement means is simple, that for you to achieve the level of success and wealth that you want, there has to be a period where you will put in the work. In doing your time in the trenches, you get a better understanding of just how difficult or easy a certain task is and how to improve it. You also get a better appreciation of what it takes to achieve what you want and keep it.

When you are starting out in business, there are several struggles that you will have to deal with. Often, when you are starting out, you will have to deal with issues of financing, staffing, contracting, even knowledge and in most cases, how to get your product in front of the right people and the right market. Unless you are connected, you will often have to struggle to get to your presentation before the correct people or your product in the supermarket shelves or your book to be published. Even with the correct links, often there will be a lot of laxity when you are putting out a new product and this means you have to work twice as hard to get your footing just right.

Dealing with these start up power struggles goes a long way in building up your character as a person as well as in business. You get to understand just what happens in the world of business and how people and businesses interrelate.  More importantly though, you begin to appreciate just how much work you have put into the success of your business and therefore work harder to protect what you have so you do not lose it. It builds your bag of tricks and experience, which makes you a better manager and for that matter an entrepreneur for your subsequent ventures. Through the process of dealing with the power struggles, you start to comprehend the difference between what you need vs what you want. It forces you to be lean when you need your business to be lean and in periods of excess to appreciate the hard work that has been done by yourself and the team. Through dealing with these power struggles, you will forge relationships that will eventually either help you achieve the success that you seek or bring you down.    

Starting off in business, often you will operate on a shoe string budget with little to offer but your product. This means that you have to appreciate the value of human resource, time and more importantly good customer experiences. The experience that you acquire at the end of the day will often help you in future when determining which directions you would like to take as a business  and as an individual.