The Intellectual Footprint of Your Business

She wasn’t getting it. I could tell that by the way she kept looking at me with this, “so… and this matters to me, why?” look on her face. It should have mattered to her, because my goal was to eliminate one of her problems.

All week I’ve been at trade shows, explaining what I do and where I am going, over and over. Some people get it right away. Some people don’t get it until you really tell them flat out, “I am not trying to just provide a service. I am trying to redefine an industry across the globe.” Then they begin to have a clue how big a thing I am trying to do.

I’ve decided to call it the “intellectual footprint”. And every business, or person, has one.

• Consider Charles Dickens. What did he contribute to the world that was good?
• Think about the safety pin. It forever redefined how we performed emergency clothing repairs.
• The Frosty made people reconsider how they thought about ice cream in a cup.

Are you trying to build a business? Or are you trying to make an impact on more than just your little corner of the world? Why, exactly, are you IN business?

If you are out to change the world, are you documenting what you learn? Are you assembling a means of passing on what you learned to others who may want to follow in your footsteps?

Often, the real difference between someone who owns a business that serves a few people, and someone who owns a business that redefines the way a group of people think about something, is nothing more than the fact that one of them documented their knowledge, and shared the life-changing lessons that they learned. They left an intellectual footprint on the world.

How big are your shoes? Will people know where you’ve trod, not because of how loudly you yelled as you went by, but by what you shared that helped them to do what they do just a little better?

You have the capacity to change the world for good. How do you intend to do that?