I’m going to quit my job and start my life.

Jon Acuff wrote a fantastic book.  Quitter.  I highly recommend it if you are thinking about starting your own businesses.  The highlights of this quick read focus on settling on the fact that you are going to transition from your current job while progressively moving towards your “dream” job.  This is a method, a technique that ensures you won’t starve on your path ahead.  

You shouldn’t feel like this at your job.

This path is not for everyone and I’m here to tell you that it’s a challenging path.  I embarked on a two-year journey that started with an idea, slowly birthed over time and grew a day at a time, sometimes painfully slow.  Here I sit writing this to you as I am about to step fulltime into my new life.  During this time my wife and I had a baby, wrangled a total of fours kids and we endured businesses losses and business gains.  At this point the gains far outweighed any losses.  I’ve learned a lot about myself and my wife during this transition.  The biggest is that I’m a pretty lucky guy.  I often worked a 40 hour week and then an additional 10 to 20 hours on the business and she put up with that… while keeping me grounded.

The new business isn’t perfect and it has its liabilities but my two-year semi-paid internship in my new business has taught me a lot and I feel that moving forward I can keep it growing and thriving.

All this might sound exciting but it’s not all pageantry and successes.  While mentally enduring the thoughts of failure and self-doubt crept in a bit too often.  Even though I’d consider myself a planner, I can only account for so many unexpected occurrences.  I’ve had to resign myself to the fact that, I can’t out-plan the unplannable.  Life happens.  It’s just how we chose to deal with it.  With the help of my wife, we’re just going to deal with it. 

My wife has also been bitten by the entrepreneurial bug and has not one but two ventures that are already starting to roll.  She’s making it look easy too!  Good for her. 

As you move forward in your life, are you doing what you want to do?  Who or what controls and owns your time?  Is this how you planned your life?  If not, you’re the only one who can change it.  If you are, you’re the one who can keep it right where you want it.

The focus of busy

What is busy?  Each of us have our own personal definition.  It could be getting up and rushing out the door to your job in the morning feels “busy”.  Or it could be the stay at home mother (or father) with a couple of children who has to juggle appointments, nap time, lunch, play dates and a myriad of other daily ventures is equally busy.  Whatever your flavor of busy might be, you’re busy because you’re doing something.  Try to be busy with something you love though.

Focused and busy

When I was deployed to Iraq, I was fairly busy.  I would wake up, run 3 to 6 miles, get cleaned up, eat and then walk around and visit a bunch of Soldiers or prep for a convoy mission.  I was always checking out something.  In the heat of the day after lunch I could probably relax for a little bit, to read a book or catch a nap.  Then I would check out the command center in the afternoon and evening, have a meeting or two, eat, catch a movie and then do it all over again for about 400+ straight days.  Those were long days, some longer than others.  The busyness of those days has taught me that I can handle “busy” and nothing is busier than a houseful of children I’ve come to find out.  Not even a wartime deployment could adequately prepare me for the energy of mutiple children under the age of five.  And that’s okay.

Being busy has the ability to focus you on what is important.  You have no choice but to utilize your limited amount of time and resources in a manner that not only supports the task at hand but your entire life.  Being busy is a good thing.  It gives you focus.  If your busyness is focused on a task that you love to do, you’ll probably feel time just melt away as you conduct your business.  Focus your energy and time on the things and people who you love and you won’t have to toil a day in your life.

Self doubt and how to recognize it

You know what? You don’t know what you’re doing.  Seriously, you’re no expert.  You probably aren’t even sure what your next move is going to be.  What makes you an expert?  Did you go to school to get your information or read a book or something?  Quit fooling yourself, you know you’re in over your head. 

Which one do you listen to?

That’s doubt.  Know what it looks and sounds like.  Know how it makes you feel and don’t you ever forget.  Doubt can destroy your confidence when you hit a bump in the road.  Know the difference between doubt and fact.  You’d be surprised, sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between the two when you are having a debate in your brain moderated by your Self Esteem. 

Take a step back and separate your doubt from actual facts.  The devastating or embarrassing end to your project or business venture probably won’t happen.  It’s only playing out in your head, which IS NOT reality.  It’s not.  Keep going, keep working and keep pushing forward.  It’ll be okay.  Focus on the positive and all the good you are doing.

The wisdom of a seven year old

Sometimes the wisdom and clarity of a seven year old makes me stop and think.  My daughter and I were talking about her future and what she wanted to be when she grows up this past weekend.

I too was surprised

She mentioned that she wanted to open a book store.  Her love of reading has blossomed over the past year and she reads everything she can get her hands on right now.  She is currently reading Stuart Little and a Star Wars trivia book.  She can thank her Dad for having both of those lying around.

As the discussion progressed I stated in all of my wisdom that a bookstore might not be the best business to open in the future.  Large books stores like Border and Barnes and Noble are currently going through some tough times and are failing.  I also added that most people may read books on an electronic device in the future like a Kindle or Nook.

She thought about my genius laden insights for a second and simply said, “Kids probably won’t have a Kindle.  They’ll still need books.”  She’s right.  She’s absolutely right.  It’s going to be hard to replace children’s books because kids need those thick, colorful pages to gnaw on and have read to them at night.  Children will still need books.

What glaringly obvious facts are you overlooking in your everyday life?  If you’d like to know, my daughter will be available for a consultation.  It won’t be cheap.  Bring your check book.

Keeping your confidence

“I have the best idea in the world”.   We’ve all heard that from a close friend before. 

“This idea is going to change everything!”  Maybe you discuss the way ahead over drinks and after a few cocktails you both are worked up into a frenzy because you just know that this is going to be bigger that Apple.  The future is limitless, until you wake up the next morning with a headache. 

You can do anything!

Businesses have the potential to be a little bit like that.  You have an idea and some plans.  You chart your course and start to move forward with some saved capital (or heavens forbid, some borrowed capital) and the future is bright.  So bright in fact that you’ve convinced yourself that everything is going to be rosy.  It can’t fail.  

Then one day, three, six or eighteen months later you realize that this process is a slow grind.  Instant mega-success has eluded you.  So now what?   You keep plugging along but now the path ahead in a muddy path, not a gilded one.  Most people get stuck in the mud.   They are no longer looking forward because their eyes are fixed on their feet, all muddied.  Confidence has began to wane. 

Confidence is a funny thing.  Either you have it, or you don’t.  There isn’t much, if any, in-between.  So where did your confidence go?  At one point your idea had a lot of promise and you met that promise with unlimited energy and vigor.  As you moved ahead the big gains or massive break through didn’t materialize the way you thought it would. 

And you know what, that’s okay.  Take time to really assess your situation.  Are you stagnate or are you going backwards?  They are not the same thing.  Are you stuck working IN your business or are you working ON your business?  There is a big difference between the two.  You need to figure out which one you’re doing.

If your initial premise was sound and you’re still moving ahead, even if it is at a slow pace, keep going.  If it was going to be easy, everyone would be doing it.  They aren’t, but you are.  Good luck on your journey.

Who or what controls your time?

It's slipping away

One thousand four hundred and forty minutes.  That’s all you get today and that’s all you get tomorrow.  That’s your day. In that time you need to do a lot.  Here are some of the basics that most of us do; sleep, eat, hygiene, travel, work, interact with friends/family. 

 

Make every chance for a connection count

How do you connect?  Is it something that you do once in a while at a scheduled event?  Is it a chore?

Let me tell you about two examples.

A great group of people

When conventional wisdom isn’t wise.

Conventional Wisdom says you probably shouldn’t eat a lot of food.  It’s not healthy.  Conventional Wisdom says you probably shouldn’t drive too fast because it’s dangerous.

Conventional Wisdom says you probably shouldn’t take certain risks.

Or is it?

 

The value of a hand shake

There is no substitute for a hand shake and a smile.  Making connections is what people remember.  Webpage’s, blogs and Google searches are all cold and sterile and don’t transmit the personality of the seller to the customer.  

Here’s a little something I found that has rung true for me.

“The impact of in-person meetings that I experienced personally this week has been studied in some depth by the fine minds at the Harvard Business Review Analytic Services. In a 2009 global survey of 2,211 Harvard Business Review subscribers, 95 percent of respondents viewed in-person meetings as a key to success in building long-term relationships. Specifically, face-to-face meetings were seen as most effective for:

This says a lot about you

 

Doing the difficult tasks will pay off

Why did you get stuck on that project?  Is it simply a lack of motivation?  You had the motivation to start whatever it was that you started.  But somewhere along the process you got bogged down.  

Could it be that your initial assumptions about the ease of the project were wrong?  Could it be that the perceived payoff of starting the project were not being realized fast enough?  Who knows.  If it is worth doing, you should get back at it. 

Do the work