How Not to eat an elephant

How not to eat an elephant

Never start at the tail end, or you will likely get crapped on. The analogy of eating an elephant has been used for years. It is supposed to teach us things such as, one step at a time, etc. What this analogy does not tell us is how TO eat an elephant, or should we even be eating elephants. Even worse, what do we do with all the meat should we successfully slay an elephant. 

When I first started out as an entrepreneur I had an ego the size of a house. I had all of this “experience”, and I even specialized my MBA towards entrepreneurship. What I soon discovered is that I was blinded by a cognitive bias, actually 2 of them:  overconfidence and confirmation bias.  

During my education process, I was introduced to cognitive biases. At the initial introduction, I was like, this is the “feelie” part of the program–I won’t use this stuff. Give me the hard core finance; show me how to make money.  Looking back, those classes would go on to serve as some of the most valuable classes I have ever taken.

Back to elephants.  I kicked off my first business following my passion. I loved woodworking. I made some things over the years. Woodworking was my hobby. I did a self assessment and looked at the things I could do to make money. Building furniture was at the top of my list.  So, like any good businessman, I began to gather data.  Instagram was telling me everything I needed to know–the market was booming, and all I needed to do was jump in. I was finding all of the information I needed to build my business case. I found demographic information, market niches; I found everything I needed to justify the spend I was incurring to get this business off the ground. Then reality hit. My mouth was bigger than my stomach; I had bitten off more than I could chew.  After 2 years of solid effort, we shut down the furniture business and I really have not picked up woodworking since.

When deciding to eat elephants, one better understand what it will entail.  Elephants are quite large. They have tough skin, and if you get lucky, you then have to deal with hundreds of pounds of meat.  Although the furniture business did not work out, it did “season” me, and in many ways, it was exactly what needed to happen to break my ego.