Business and Clarity

Introduction 

When Anthony first reached out to me, the one thing that struck me was his resilience. He didn't want sympathy for the challenges he faced. Nor did the adversity of his life weigh him down. Instead, he sought guidance and a way to carve a better future. Anthony wanted to overcome the crisis that follows for people who've been arrested and brought into the criminal justice system. 

Authorities arrested Anthony and charged him with crimes that could have led to a life sentence. They held him in a detention center. While in the detention center, he worked through Edovo Platform and began learning from the courses we offer through Prison Professors. Those courses inspired him to want to learn more and take proactive steps in his defense. I hope you’ll find lessons in Anthony’s story. It may prompt you to work toward success, as you define it.

Anthony’s Journey 

Anthony faced charges that could have kept in prison for life. Instead, he used his time in jail to leverage every tool at his disposal. Through the courses we offer, he learned how to work more effectively with his defense attorney. By learning how to communicate more about his life, he empowered his defense attorney to negotiate more effectively with the prosecutors. After he spent one year in jail, the prosecutors agreed to drop all charges against him and he walked free.

Within days of his release, he sent a message and asked for guidance. I told him about the free information we make available on the PrisonProfessors.org website. If he wanted to talk with me, I told him that I'd take the time, provided he allowed me to record the video conversation so that I could share it as a resource for other people in jail or prison. I wanted them to learn from him about the challenges that follow an altercation with the criminal justice system.

During our conversation, I learned more about the limited resources Anthony had when he got out. He only had a few hundred dollars to his name. He had a vehicle and laptop, and hoped to build a business that would sustain him. During his first month out, he brought in about $1,500, but he acknowledged it wasn’t sufficient for him to live. He needed to increase his income stream.

He wanted guidance on how to build a business that could support him and contribute meaningfully to the lives of people in his community. 

Any person going into the system, or going through the system, should think about the challenges they will face. The should work through a SWOT analysis. 

A SWOT analysis is a powerful tool for evaluating a business or personal strategy. It stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats, and provides a structured framework to assess internal and external factors that could impact success. 

• Strengths refer to the unique advantages or assets that can be leveraged, such as skills, resources, or a strong network. 
• Weaknesses identify areas that require improvement or pose challenges, such as limited funding or gaps in knowledge. 
• Opportunities highlight external factors or trends that can be tapped into for growth.
• Threats encompass potential risks or obstacles, like economic shifts or competition. 

By systematically analyzing these four areas, individuals and businesses can gain clarity and develop actionable strategies that align with their goals.

Socratic Questions 

To bring clarity to his aspirations and challenges, I challenged Anthony to give me a two-minute answer to the following question:

• What is your business model and what do you want to build?

In listening to Anthony's response, I didn't get a clear answer and didn't know how the business would survive.

To build a business, a person must be super clear about what value proposition the business will offer. In his response, I didn't hear a specific structure about what he wanted, or how the business would generate revenues and sustain itself. Without that clarity, investors or lenders wouldn't know whether to provide capital, and customers wouldn't know what they'd get from the business.

To help him refine his objectives, I suggested he break down his broad aspirations into actionable steps. Clarity of thought, I suggested, would be critical in turning his vision into a sustainable business. To enhance prospects for success, he would need to get super clear about what he wanted to accomplish.

Applying the Straight-A Guide 

Anthony could apply the principles in the Straight-A Guide to work toward his project of becoming an entrepreneur. He could start by considering lessons we recommend in the course, which he could find with the self-directed course available on our website. The following link offers a basic primer.

• The Straight-A Guide

Anthony wants to build a scalable business that empowers his community and fosters personal growth for everyone involved. He needs to make sure he can define what it will look like if he succeeds.

• What will the business do and how will it earn revenues? 

Set Clear Goals 

Anthony should break down the specific goals he would have to achieve in order to bring his vision to life. For example:

• Write a business plan that clearly shows what values, goods, or services the business would provide.
• Identify the ways that the business would generate revenues and how it would earn profits.
• Describe how much money he will need to get the business off the ground, and explain the strategy that he would use to raise the capital.
• Explain the value that an investor or a lender would receive from the project.
• Show a detailed plan that would describe what he would do with the resources he received.
• Put a plan together that would show how he would find customers and how much it would cost to acquire customers.
• Describe how the business would grow.
• Describe why Anthony is uniquely qualified to run this business.
• Describe the size of the market.

Next Steps 

Anthony now has some homework to refine his vision. Together, we identified his need to articulate a clear business model that includes:

1. A breakdown of his target market and their needs. 
2. A financial roadmap explaining how much capital he needs and how he will use it. 
3. A strategy to build credibility with future investors and customers. 

This next phase will be critical to Anthony’s success. Success doesn’t happen by accident. It’s a result of strategic thinking, disciplined effort, and clarity of purpose.  To succeed, I suggested that he invest time and energy, showing that he intends to live as the CEO of his life. That means he should:

• Define success as the best possible outcome.
• Put a clear plan together that will take him from where he is to where he wants to go.
• Build tools, tactics, and resources that will accelerate his plan.
• Show how he is going to hold himself accountable, with clear milestones to assess whether he is succeeding.
• Identifies the way that he will adjust as he learns more about the business.

Lessons for You 

We all have an opportunity to turn crisis into opportunity. To succeed, however, we need to develop clear plans. I learned the importance of setting plans at the start of my journey. Think about what success means for you, and build a story that will show others you're serious about wanting to reach your highest potential.

If you’re facing challenges, reflect on the following and craft a response:

• Describe your version of success?
• What action steps are you taking to succeed? 
• In what ways did you advance your path to success yesterday? 
• How are you measuring progress, to hold yourself accountabile? 
• What challenges threaten your prospects for success?
• Why should others believe that you're capable of executing this plan? 

Remember, success is always within reach—but it requires clarity, discipline, and action to make it a reality.

Anthony’s Instagram handle: https://www.instagram.com/aces_elite_empire/?hl=en

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