So...What's Next?!?

Avoiding Burnout

As I mentioned on my corporate blog, I am coming up on my 4 year anniversary of running this company. Over the past 4 years I have faced and overcome a lot of challenges, but the most difficult of challenges for an entrepreneur/small business owner is burnout.

Here is the thing:

• Good ideas get shot down
• People do not follow through
• Lots of energy gets put into ideas that do not work
• Clients shift and change their mind
• Clients do not always pay their invoices on time
• Service providers, such as lawyers and accountants try to take advantage of you
• Competitors invade your space by over promising and under-pricing
• Fakers ruin the reputation of whole industries turning prospective clients into skeptics
• People have very short-term memories

Yes, all of this is true whether you work for someone or on your own. But then add in

• The need to manage resources
• Paying others before paying yourself
• Being pushed out by the bigger players
• Having to be more innovative and agile than those with more resources
• Only being able to eat what you kill
• Playing the role of sales person, researcher, writer, campaign manager, accountant, hr, and communications manager... all in one day.

No I am not whining or complaining, I am simply listing the many things that can eventually cause a person to burn out. For some of us, we also add being a parent and balancing family with work.

So, yes the past few months I have been fighting the symptoms of burn out. The key word here is FIGHTING

So, here are some of the top 10 ways I have avoided burn-out.

1. Accept the changes that you are not in control of as the Universe looking out for your best interest. Yes this is a leap of faith, but so is working for yourself.
2. Look at your competitors as a source of inspiration and learn from them, as opposed to  a source of pain. 
3. Take inventory of your accomplishments to-date.
4. Take some time off. Even if finances are screaming at you that you cannot afford to, sometimes you cannot afford not to.
5. Seriously consider what your other options are. It just may be time to move on and do something new. You will only know if you seriously and thoroughly evaluate what other options exist and what the advantages and disadvantage of all options are.
6. Re-evaluate your visions for the company. Your target might have moved which is why the goal no longer seems realistic. Perhaps you were shooting for more than you really wanted or maybe you simply were not challenging yourself to shoot for more than you have.
7. Start up a side project. Get your start-up/entrepreneurial juices flowing again, even if it is simply to have another reason to get out of bed in the morning.
8. Read books about inspirational business leaders.
9. Re-invent your business. 6 of my favorite words are : Where Do We Go From Here? It is a fresh starting point no matter where you are standing.
10.  Hang out with friends and family who tell you what an inspiration you have been to them. There is nothing like not wanting to let someone down to get you going again.

Honestly, after running through steps 1-10 I still do not have a solid answer of where I want to go from here, but I have found my groove again and things continue to move along while I figure the rest of it out.

An Entrepreneur's Journey - Part 3

What happened? Where did all your content go? What is going on here?

If these questions came to mind the past few days after to coming to my blog, hopefully this post will explain.

I was getting bored with my blog, the inspiration was no longer there, the flame was dying. My last couple of posts were really me just trying to put something up.

I thought about it for a long time and realized that I had outgrown the blog. I was ready for a new phase.

The first blog I launched in October 2005 was deleted on 1/23/08, not by my choice, but by a weird twist of reality. I missed it for a long time. There were a few posts that I considered some really good writing, but at the same time it was an opportunity to launch a new blog for phase 2 of my life.

Phase 1 and therefore blog #1 focused on my exploration of what I wanted in my life, what pushed my buttons, and what my core values were. It was the various experiences and feelings that pushed me to start my own company. But I was very afraid of what I was getting myself into, and I explored those feelings often as well. At the time it was deleted I had entered into a new phase of this journey. I was taking myself more seriously and believed in what I was building but needed to find a direction and therefore was seeking guidance.

Phase 2/blog 2 really explored the many different places I received guidance and the directions I was going. Oftentimes I was posting a pep talk that I was giving to myself or exploring my authoritative voice.

Once I realized that I was losing inspiration to keep posting and decided I needed a fresh start I made the decision to delete my blog. Before I did so I went through all of the posts and did not find anything that I wanted to keep.

If you think about a journey, you keep moving forward, you do not hold on to the past. You learn from your past, but it is the past. I had no reason to hold on  to the content of my last phase and I am ready to start this new phase.

So what will phase 3, or what I am calling part 3, bring? Well like all journeys, I can only guess, but I really won't know until we travel the path. I find that I want to explore the world around me more as opposed to exploring the world inside of me. There are so many great ideas and stories and people in the world, and I want to share that world on my blog. I am also exploring what it takes to be a great leader and a catalyst of valuable change.

I am sure I will continue to blog about my family, as they are the center of my world. In fact I have considered producing a podcast of the conversations I have with my teenage son about the gaming industry.

I am anxious to see where inspiration finds me and what we will get to learn on this new journey. The journey that has led me to new places, new experiences, new ideas, and new opportunities. A journey that has always been in control while I have just been along for the ride.

“Journeys, like artists, are born and not made. A thousand differing circumstances contribute to them, few of them willed or determined by the will-whatever we may think.”