Here’ an entrepreneurial epiphany moment brought o you by 3 preschoolers. [And the letter C and the number 4.]

My daughter and son and niece are swimming. Floatie-laden. I’m sitting beside the pool, trying to read. Suddenly: screams. Terror. Flailing arms. I jump up and nearly jump in when I realize no one’s drowning. The waves calm, the screams quiet, and turns out that there was a spider.

Oh.
I offer to get it out and am refused. They can handle it. I watch as, for the next 15 minutes, they wave the spider closer to each other, have a crisis moment, and take turns saving each other from the evil eight-legged beast. It’s fun to be the hero.

When you’re 3 years old, this is a good way to spend an afternoon.
When you’re over, say, 20, it’s not. When you own a business, it’s not. When you really are the one in charge, or when you want to be the one in charge, it’s self-defeating.

It’s fun to be the hero, but the real success is in doing the drudge work, hitting the routine day after day, keeping up, maintaining, moving forward (slow and steady), and overcoming the resistance you’re guaranteed to encounter.