If you find yourself on a detour, at least enjoy the scenery.

The journey is as important as the destination.

Those quotes seem to be written by people who are “direction challenged” and are trying to make the best of a bad situation. Trying to stay calm as it finally dawns on them that they made a wrong turn two hours ago. Yes, I have made a wrong turn or two, staying on what I thought would lead me to my destination. And I did get there. Eventually.

But I have a new way of looking at those sayings now. All too often in business people adapt the attitude of “stay the course”, “never, never, never, give up.”

But maybe the first quotes about the journey and the scenery aren’t simply mantras to keep your stress levels down. Instead they are an opportunity to reflect, reconsider, re-evaluate. That’s certainly been our experience.

Anytime you start a business, you go in with certain assumptions about your product and your market. Many of the assumptions and decisions are based on research, others are based on gut feelings. But you never have all the answers. Your customers do. And if you go in thinking you only have one customer, if you “stay the course”, you may miss other customers who are begging for your product.

We started Group Story to give people a way to remember a time in their lives, a time that involved other people. Finally, there was a way for everyone involved to share an experience in photos and story, picking and choosing what they wanted in their own customized book. We had our eyes on some very specific markets - and still do. They have been overwhelmingly supportive of our product.

But we were unprepared for the other directions Group Story is taking. Unprepared, but open, to honestly listening to people describe how they wanted to use Group Story. Surprised, and humbled, by the generosity of new found friends who are helping to spread the use of Group Story to other areas by reaching out into their own circle of friends.

So, how did this happen? How did we learn to listen? We believe these things happen because of passion and authenticity. I don’t know if it’s because it’s remarkable to be passionate in business, but that is the word that is used constantly to describe us and our approach to our company. It’s infectious. Authenticity is equally important. People that we meet know that we are honestly and sincerely interested in listening to them. They sense that there is no difference between us as company owners and them as customers. They can tell that we love our product for what it can do for them and what it can do for us.

If we had stayed on the same road, ignoring details, oblivious to the scenery, we would not have noticed the other options. And we would have missed a lot of opportunity, some of which were on the side roads of our journey. Opportunity to meet new friends and to give Group Story a chance to work in other people’s lives.

Besides passion and authenticity, is there another reason this seemed to have worked so well for us? Some might credit The Secret. Others might think it’s just luck that has helped us become successful. However, we think Joseph Campbell said it best:

“Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid,
and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.
If you follow your bliss,
doors will open for you that wouldn’t have opened for anyone else.”