Entrepreneur wake-up call . . .

Stop trying to please

 everyone in the world!

Let’s face it, Entrepreneur: You’re a fire-in-the-belly person, and that’s enough heat for any body; you don’t need heartburn too! You’re in business because you believe in your ideas. You’ve stayed in business during this pathetic excuse for an economy because you want to make your ideas work.

Lately, you’ve been getting yourself caught up in trying to please too many other people, and your ideas are taking a hit. You can’t start a fire with a magnifying glass if you keep moving the magnifying glass. Well, you also need the sun. Maybe that’s why rainforests are not exactly a hotbed of entrepreneurial expression and innovation? 

The suggestion bandied about by leading motivational gurus and schools of entrepreneurship that anyone who starts or owns a business must set the world on fire in order to succeed is totally false. Anyone who seeks to succeed as an entrepreneur must have a burning desire to succeed. Period. Here’s a good translation of that point: 

To Thine Own Self Be True!

                                                                             –Shakespeare          

Once you’ve pleased yourself by getting your business idea off the ground, you need to please your customers, employees, partners and financial backers, in order to get your business idea into orbit. Next, you need to please your community and industry or profession, to stay in forward motion.

Oh, right, and please let’s not forget about your family! Without some kind of strong family support, you’ll never be likely to get past the rough spots you’ll bump into along the way. Now, right there, in those last three sentences–look again! There’s enough to fill the lifetime of any entrepreneur. Isn’t that enough? You’re a masochist?

I mean, if you want to torture yourself, go ahead, but I can’t imagine that you would feel you need to please the Chinese Communists, Mexican drug lords, the White House, al-Qaeda terrorists, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Mafia, Lybian and Cuban dictators, “Gangs of New York” or gruesome novelist Stephen King. Whew! Some list, huh?

So if that’s the case, why do you need to please your in-laws? Your teachers? Your neighbors? The shelf-stocker at Staples (“That was easy!”), your dentist (well, okay we really do need to please our dentists!), but you get the idea. Every time you step outside your inner circles of influence, you risk your ideas losing energy and attention.

Nothing kills an entrepreneurial venture quicker

than trying to be all things to all people.

 Be Your Own Hero!   Reality Rules.

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Hal@Businessworks.US  302.933.0116

  Open minds open doors.

 Thanks for visiting and God bless you.

  Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

July 2, I promised a “SMASHING” small business message tonight 

Well, maybe it won’t  

 smash you, but if you run

a busy business . . . this

will make you think!

If it’s as true as piles of pundits, preachers, parsons, pastors, pioneers, and philosophers proclaim, [Alliteration trophy, here I come!] that all of life –yes, ALL of life (including how you handle your business) is simply preparation for death . . . are you ready?

Let me guess: you’re too busy living to think about death right now, eh? Or you’re one of those young,  indestructible types who just refuse to believe death is even possible or worth considering until you’re 89?

Hey, good for you. Either of those may be as honest an answer as you’re capable of mustering at the moment.

I mean, after all, unless you’re a last-will-and-testament lawyer, an estate planner, serial-killer, burial plot salesman, funeral director, or a N.J. Mafia guy, you’re probably not giving much thought to this inevitability on a day-to-day basis. 

Well, don’t let me dampen your holiday-shortened work week, but reality –in case you haven’t looked around lately– the odds are that, recently, someone whose life has been close to yours has died unexpectedly, or will soon.

Maybe a business you know has recently closed down and boarded up. And probably, your own has visited some shaky ground sometime over the past couple of years.

How do you get ready for something you don’t want to think about? In all likelihood, the best way to do this is to ask yourself some hard self-assessment questions that you surely have the answers to, and surely are able to change outcomes any time you choose. Try the following for starters, and add your own in the process:

• Have you done a good job with yourself? With others? With your business?

• Have you and your business helped others?

• Do you make someone happy every day?

• Do you stand up for what’s right?

• Are you tolerant of other’s opinions?

• Do you take your business practices beyond good customer service and good employee relations?

• Do you respect and act gracious to every person you encounter every day, regardless of her or his appearance, behavior, influence or apparent socio-economic or educational status?

• Are you setting examples for others to follow on the job, and off?

• How will others remember and define you?

Like the necessity (no matter what your age and assets) for formalizing and maintaining an updated written will, the questions above only take on great value and deep meaning when you take the time and trouble to write down your answers to each on paper, and then periodically review them for progress and adjustments.

How else can you know if you’re truly making the most of your time on Earth if you have no frame of reference to draw from, explore, adjust and upgrade? Your written records of you empower your productivity. 

Until such time as you may be judged, you are your own best judge.

To thine own self be true! 

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Hal@Businessworks.US  302.933.0116

  Open minds open doors.

 Thanks for visiting and God bless you.

  Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

YOU WILL NOT

GET PAID

for doing tasks

of avoidance,

nor will you get

the time back!

     The trouble is that ONLY you know what truly constitutes a task of avoidance, and ONLY you know when your time’s awastin’, which serves to underscore that being true to yourself is yet one more ONLY to think about– being true to yourself is the ONLY way to run a business and live life to the fullest.

     ONLY? Well, assuming you accept that there’s no suggestion intended here to be selfish in terms of dealing with others, and that one needs to be oriented toward strengthening oneself (i.e., one’s SELF), consider the alternatives for a minute and you’ll certainly agree.

     Even the world’s greatest givers — of love, of money, of opportunities, of freedom, of whatever counts — recognize and accept that they must somehow be able to give from a position of strength in order to be truly effective.

     If you are committed to a goal of giving money to the (fictitious) E-Charity Fund, and you donate at great personal sacrifice because table food is scarce and mortgage payments are behind, guess what? You’re not being blessedly generous; you’re being foolish.

     Once you’re able to catch up with your expenses and build a base of financial strength, you’ll be able to donate more, more often. Self-sacrifice is not a requirement for charitable giving. Sure, there are always those who will be in greater need than you, but if you fail to boost your own finances before giving money away, you may be setting yourself up to be joining the ranks those you seek to support. 

     Then what good will you be? 

     Do you need millions to justify donating thousands? No. But you need to not be teetering on the brink of bankruptcy or foreclosure before you saddle yourself with cash donations that could put you under. And that doesn’t mean that you are any less loving or caring or charitable a person.

     Back to rebates on wasted time: there are none.

     Granted that when the pressure’s on to get a report or presentation done, may not be the best time to go for a long walk or start plucking yellow leaves off of plants . . . or maybe it is! Creative-types often need to divert their physical selves to stimulate their conceptualization chambers in their brains. Walks and yellow leaves may be just the ticket!

     What’s the point? Like Smokey The Bear’s message that “ONLY YOU CAN PREVENT FOREST FIRES!” — ONLY you know yourself and your circumstances well enough to determine if you’re wasting time or not. And making that determination comes full circle back to the keynote message of the first paragraph above: To thine own self be true!  

     Oh, and by the way (i.e., btw), it’s a choice!  

Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day! Blog via RSS feed or $1/mo Kindle. GRANDPARENT Gift? http://bit.ly/3nDlGF