Belief
The following post is from Brian Kelley ’18 , founder of Kanga Trash & Energy Systems, a spring 2016 hatchery business.
Brian Kelley ’18 , founder of Kanga Trash & Energy Systems
In his book, The Students Guide to Entrepreneurship, Marc Steren, my adviser and former teacher, highlights what he calls the BACCA methodology. BACCA is an integrated and proprietary teaching method of Belief systems, team Associations and design thinking, business model Canvas, Customer development, and Analytics. Steren uses this methodology at the Bullis School as a way to incorporate customer development and the principals of lean methodology and combine those lessons with what I think is the most important thing every entrepreneur needs; “a strong belief in themselves and their team” (Steren.)
Steren uses an exercise to inspire his students to believe in themselves. It is called the 4 P’s, standing for pain, pleasure, passion, and pain. Here are the 4 p’s highlighted in Steren’s book:
Pain: All change occurs in two phases, initial change and everlasting change. Initial change occurs when you have hit rock bottom, when there is such massive pain you need to bring about the change. You must seek an alternative. Everlasting change is the change that occurs when that initial change becomes habitual. Pain initiates the change, it’s the causation that lets us know something must be done. Pleasure helps us maintain the desired change and makes it part of your daily life
Pleasure: As indicated, pain only the starting point. How can you maintain the longevity of change? If we are going to work towards change, there must be a reward at the other end. Pleasure will inspire us to stick with it. By adding pleasure, you can now make change into a daily change.
Passion: How then do we convert a pain into a pleasurable experience with rewards? We can only make this conversion by understanding “why” we want to change. What is motivating me to make a lasting change?
Plan: You need a plan to implement the change once you have figured the pain, pleasure, passion. In order for everything to work there needs to be a plan. For developing belief we have the Hill Canvas. The canvas helps the entrepreneur hold themselves accountable by writing down their beliefs. When we write down our plans we must include
- The definite expected outcome we want to achieve.
- What you are willing to give in return for the outcome. What are you willing to commit yourself to in order to achieve the goal?
- The outcome; how much work do you need to do to accomplish the task? There should also be a definite date in accomplishing this task. Once the Hill Canvas is filled out, the entrepreneur needs to read it out loud twice a day, once in the morning, and again just before going to bed.
Check out The Students Guide to Entrepreneurship and see for yourself!