Recently I had a customer ask me how long I had been in business for and it left me wondering.
If someone was to ask me how I felt about the last nine years of being in business I would say this;
Imagine a white line extending far into the distance. The left side is the business and the right side of the line is everything else. For me, the left side is success, achievement and satisfaction and the right side is more time, more freedom and less stress. The beginning of the line is when I started the business and the end of the line is my death to put it morbidly. Hopefully the line extends for some while into the distance…
Anyway, so here I am standing over the line, it’s almost the end of 2008 and I’ve about to take a great leap. I start off both feet on either side of the line and take my first step…
Fast forward to 2018 and as I turn around and look back at my footsteps I can see I’ve spent most of my time hopping on my left foot, with occasional footsteps into the left to keep my balance and stop myself from falling over.
Some of the hops are tightly spaced, others have much space between them. Some footsteps are neat and tidy, some footsteps appear like I’ve been dragging my feet, or I’ve tripped up or tripped over… You get the idea.
So here I stand in 2018, with both feet on either side of the line. This year I want things to be different, to be better. So, I’m no longer taking steps on the right-hand side of the line. I’m going to just walk entirely on the left-hand side this year. This business of just me competes against much larger businesses with an even larger number of employees so I must keep investing more time just to keep up and remain relevant.
Maybe I can find all those things on the right side in the left side? If I don’t have to hop anymore maybe I can pay more attention to what is happening around me and make better decisions?
2018 will start off as a slow walk but it will be a steady one until I am more surefooted.
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