Chris Cooper - Founder, Farmer, Tinker, Thief: The Four Phases of the Entrepreneurs Journey

What do you want to be when your business grows up?

I ask because many entrepreneurs dont think beyond the present. Obsessed with pleasing the next customer, making the next deadline, or finding the missing receipt at months end, passionate, motivated owners sometimes forget that a business is either shrinking or growing at all times, creating larger challenges.

Losses require courage and quick, decisive action, while profits require vision, foresight, and careful planning for the future. In both situations, the business is evolving each day, and it takes a strong leader to guide it. But to lead, a person must have a destination, and many do not yet look to the horizon.

Entrepreneurship is hard work, and the character of the average small business owner might be part of the problem. A strong willingness to roll up the sleeves and do everything can doom an owner to a life of twelve - hour days that start with customer service and end with a plunger in a toilet. Its the curse of the talented. Their skill in keeping the ship afloat means they often dont look beyond the bow.

Too often, Ive watched gloriously talented and incredibly passionate people burn themselves out or struggle to turn a profit. In other cases, businesses grow but stall, leaving the owners confused and frustrated. And some people simply dont know what to do with success and arent prepared to seize the day when it arrives.

It doesnt have to be that way.

A path exists from a passionate business founder to a farmer who grows a profitable business that provides opportunities for others and better service to clients. A good farmer becomes a tinker whose success has freed him or her to take assertive steps that move an enterprise from small to medium. Beyond those roles is that of the thief: a successful, visionary owner who essentially retires to focus on leveraging connections to reach other industries and build a legacysomething that improves the world and lives on beyond the owner.

This path creates a perfect day for an owner who has worked hard but smart to earn success and freedom. While the bright - eyed founder and the salt - of - the - earth farmer might imagine these rewards and feel guilty for desiring them, tinkers and thieves know that their success has created a ripple effect. In their wake are new founders and farmers who are working toward their own perfect days thanks to the inspiration provided by the tinkers and the mentorship supplied by the thieves.

Im walking this path just like you are. Ive worked sixteen - hour days, canceled vacations, and headed to our business before 5 a.m. to patch cracks in drywall. When I reached the end of my rope, I talked to Chris Cooper and the Two - Brain Business mentors who helped me refocus my business. Chris and his team asked me what I wanted to be when our small gym outgrew the hobby stage, and they taught me to see the business not as a labor of love but as an asset that can help me live the life I want.

My wife and I arent even close to the Thief stage yet, but were moving ever closer to our perfect day because we have a dream, a solid plan, and a support network. We know where we are, and we know where we want to go.

This book will help you learn whether youre a founder, farmer, tinker, or thief, and it will help you become better in your current role as you work to move on to the next. Youll find your own path to success and blaze a trail for others to follow. Youll become a better business owner, youll have happier staff members and clients, and youll have more free time to enjoy your success with your family.

So what do you want to be when your business grows up?

Mike Warkentin
Founder/Farmer
CrossFit 204

COME my tan - faced children,

Follow well in order, get your weapons ready,

Have you your pistols? Have you your sharp - edged axes?

Pioneers! O pioneers!

We detachments steady throwing,

Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep,

Conquering, holding, daring, venturing as we go the unknown ways,

Pioneers! O pioneers!

We primeval forests felling,

We the rivers stemming, vexing we and piercing deep the mines within,

We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving,

Pioneers! O pioneers!

Lifes involvd and varied pageants,

All the forms and shows, all the workmen at their work,

All the seamen and the landsmen, all the masters with their slaves,

Pioneers! O pioneers!

From Nebraska, from Arkansas,

Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the continental blood interveind,

All the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern, all the Northern,

Pioneers! O pioneers!

Have the elder races halted?

Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the seas?

We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson,

Pioneers! O pioneers!

O resistless restless race!

O beloved race in all! O my breast aches with tender love for all!

O I mourn and yet exult, I am rapt with love for all,

Pioneers! O pioneers!

Walt Whitman, Pioneers! O Pioneers! 1865