Comments
Staying Calm
Over the past month or so, I have spent a lot of time strategising what I WANT. For most of this year that I have taken solo control of Decisive Flow, my aim has been to ‘see how things go’. But now I’m more clear headed and have tried a few different things, it’s time to come up with a plan.
Hiring a business mentor has been key to this. I don’t believe it is possible to run a business on your own, and I don’t think that the advice of friends and family is enough to back you up (which is not to deny the value of it!)
One thing I woke up and realised recently is that for the last 3 or four years I have never ONCE woken up without feeling stressed. It is a very mild stress that is a combo of:
1. Worrying about the future
2. Worrying about having missed something important
It struck me that this kind of ongoing stress is not normal, and that I have come to accept it in my life.
So, one of the key things I hope to get out the the next 9 months with my business mentor is how to GET RID of that morning (and all day) stress and ensure I have plans in place that I feel comfortable enough with to rely on!
It just struck me as insane that I wasn’t even aware of how ingrained the stress was and how I had simply accepted it.
Hello, my name is Natalie, I have a business called 
October 6th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Yeah, I know the feeling. I have a little software company in Denmark and for some reason there’s a constant stress factor that I just began to realise recently (it becomes pretty clear when my friends tell me that I seem stressed). Please keep me posted if you find the holy grail of how to combat this.
October 6th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Nat
I recommend you get a copy of the 4-hour work week by Timothy Ferriss. You don’t need to follow it to the letter, but it really makes you think about how you can change the way you run your business and how you run your life. It has the potential to be a truly life changing book.
October 6th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Yeah I tried it and hated it (The book).
I think key for me will be to:
1. Solidify our ‘products’
2. Write a budget
3. Tell someone EXACTLY what goes through my mind every morning and see how much it reflects reality.
4. Write a marketing/business plan and monitor it.
It’s basically the feeling that once you measure something, you stop stressing about it. Since I’m not currently measuring, I’m stressing.
I will keep you posted on my journey because I think there are too many of us who have accepted this stress in our lives.. And next time I have a two week holiday, I don’t want to prepare for it as a ‘semi-work-trip’
Thanks for the comments!
October 7th, 2008 at 10:01 am
Hi Nat
Welcome to the world of the true entrepreneur!
I remember being about your (apparent) age and waking up in the mornings worrying about mortgages. About 30 of them! I was renting a place, but people who worked for me had families and houses and mortgages, and I knew they all depended on me to make sure the business was healthy and they could make their payments!
One day I went to see a lecturer from my Business School (I hadn’t seen him for years,) and asked if he had any advice – he told me to do three things. I respected the man, and so I decided to try his wisdom – after all, he was rich and alive, he’s survived entrepreneurialism! I am now in similar circumstances, and have to work to keep my mind’s craving for challenge satisfied – not to put gas in the sports car; his advice was no vice it was god counsel.
The three things?
1. Acknowledge that you can hire better talent than yourself at producing what you business produces and that your job is to do that. (That was hard but I managed it.)
2. Acknowledge that you need an on/off switch for your working day, find it and use it. (That was harder until I found a place on my commute (a total of three miles) that I started to use as the switch. On that wonderful day I stopped taking work home – in my mind never mind in physical form, – and started to have a dual life that was great.
3. Concentrate on your customers; be their representative inside your business, treat them like family, make them proud of you and you proud of them. Most importantly, when you’re wrong admit it when you’re right shut up!
One I added because it really does work. When you’ve asked for the order, say no more, you’ve had your turn!
Old now, but yet to catch oldfartitus, let me know if you ever want an (unpaid) ear to bend – the position of boss is lonely and I have good listening skills. (ps. Say Hi to Jim for me!)
October 8th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Dave,
Love the number 1. You’re right. I’ve already hand to hand over chief designer role to basically everyone else in the company because they are all better than me. I never quite put my finger on that though. Totally right!
2. Yes Found that and i can switch off, but it takes one thing to set me back on and it’s always hiding back there. I think I need to work on that one!
3. I can only say ‘yes!’