Seth Godin, marketer extroidinaire  and internet guru makes the case that, when trying to figure out the direction you need to go in your work life, you need to look at two things: content/domain knowledge and process.  He explains that “process refers to the emotional intelligence skills you have about managing projects, visualizing success, persuading other people of your point of view, dealing with multiple priorities etc.”

I have to admit, when I started entrepreneuring I had neither.  My father died and I was suddenly thrust into managing ranchland, mineral rights, cattle, grazing, tough as leather cowhands, and swarms of immigrants crossing over and across our land which was like the Camino Real into the States, as old as the ancient Indian trails crisscrossing the Southwest.  It was a bit disconcerting to a young woman who had just come back from the East, from Wellesley with its crew neck sweaters and circle pins, having graduated from Columbia, that egg-head paradise, a stone’s throw from the Broadway theaters, which I frequented regularly.  Yet, here I was in the South Texas sun and red dust or mud, depending on the season, wearing boots for fear of rattlesnakes and carrying firearms for fear of all else, trying to run a busines  But what’s a gal to do?  I learned.

What I did have when I started was the fearlessness of someone trained since birth to be an entrepreneur and considering risk taking as natural as breathing.  So even though I might have been put off by rattlesnakes, I assumed I could learn a business, any business, just as well as anyone else, because my father had convinced me I could.  And I did.

But I have to agree with Seth.  Perhaps the most important things I learned were high level things that I didn’t even realize at the time involved process, perhaps because my father didn’t call it that.  What he had were certain maxims that I had to learn to decode.  Statements like ” You have to be around money to make money.”  Or, go into a lucrative market, not one that’s hanging on by its fingernails.  Or, my favorite. At the age of 5 or so, my father would point to a building and ask “What’s that building worth?” The correct answer was, “As much as you can get for it.”

Those are the kind of processes that are invaluable and here’s Seth’s take on it from Seth’s Blog: What are you good at?.