Steve the Owl's Blog

One of the things that has amazed me the most in the world of business is the dichotomy between those who seem to try to make things too difficult, and those who try to make them too easy. I think that the steps themselves to success in business are pretty basic, although some of them definitely take know-how, and we cannot ignore the fact that there are some external and intangible forces that must always be accounted for. It is times like these when I am reminded of something my sixth-grade teacher said in math class that has given me a lot of confidence whenever I think about it:

Every addition problem ultimately breaks down to nothing bigger than “what is nine plus nine?” There may be a lot of steps, but this is what it is at its most basic.

The more I thought about that, the more that I realized what a profound statement that really was. Of course, in a room full of 11- and 12-year-olds, we did not realize what he meant at the time, and some of the people who had difficulty with math really seemed offended by his statement. Then, he explained it by putting a math problem on the board, and his statement was right, because any two numbers that you added was a series of additions with basic elements that were no more than 9+9, no matter how big the number got.

What This Means for Business

I am not trying to see that the world of business is nothing more than adding single-digit numbers. However, at its core, there are several basic elements to any business. Look at blogs: some blogs can look pretty complicated, but once you get the hang of it, some of the plugins are extremely easy to operate and maintain. While there are definitely going to be times when there are things that we don’t understand yet, I think that we can definitely use the things that we do know and build each of them by breaking them down into smaller parts that are not so overwhelming.

How I Applied This Later

In high school, when I did track and cross-country, I had trouble in the beginning doing the run up Oakford Avenue, the steepest hill in town. Then, I was told something counterintuitive that was really surprising. I was told not to look at the top of the hill, because that would only make it seem farther away. The road was paved, so simply trust my navigation and focus on the next step. The very first time I did it, I was able to touch the steps at the top of the hill without resorting to walking once! This was another example of Nine Plus Nine Thinking (I just came up with that phrase. I don’t mind if you share, but please acknowledge that you got it from your old friend Steve ) at work. After all, the elements of running are really simple, and it involved lots of smaller actions, but the end result was the same.

Even Easier Than School

Still, despite such advice, there are some people who are not as good in math at others. There are also going to be some people who are better at marketing and blogging than others. However, we don’t have to have the perfect blog in order to make our business work. All we really have to do is have the basic tools in place. Something else that I’ve noticed is that so many bloggers are more than happy to share the basics with others for free. With that in mind, I know that nothing is too difficult, and I know that in time I will reach my goals because everything that we need can be broken down to its most basic element where it can be understood.