One thing I’ve noticed about entrepreneurs is that they seem to wear drama as a badge of honor.
When you’re just starting out, or in that initial growth stage, it’s unavoidable.
And yes: Those encounters with drama make for great stories, humanize you and connect you with the struggles your market is going through.
But too many of us invite drama back in, again and again, after we have kicked it out the door.
The problem with repeated drama is you can get addicted to the rush it gives you.
Until you find yourself hanging off the financial cliff by your fingernails one too many times. And realize the thrill is gone.
If that sounds like you, and you’re ready to experience drama-free success, this post is what you’ve been searching for.
This post is for you if:
- Your brilliant ideas have turned to catastrophes one too many times, and steady success is starting to sound pretty good.
- You’re tired of walking the tightrope to get the results you want.
- You’re ready to reconnect with your big goals (instead of the buzz) so you can get your business back on track.
PLAN IT FIRST.
Problems are cheaper and easier to fix on paper.
Your business is not a crap shoot. Or a spin of the roulette wheel.
It’s true many problems that create drama are impossible to see until they’ve grabbed you by the you-know-what.
But a surprising number of them are foreseeable. And preventable.
The famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright said:
It’s a lot easier and less costly to anticipate problems and avoid them. Then to forge ahead recklessly and find yourself in the middle of them.
By all means, take risks. It’s harder and slower to grow your business when you don’t.
But having a clear picture about what you’re getting into – before you get into it – can help you avoid the hard landings completely.
Or soften the ones that sneak up on you.
FIND AN ALTERNATE ENERGY SOURCE.
Drama is the most expensive fuel in the world.
We may not want to admit it, but drama fuels us.
It’s the spark that starts the engine. The problem is, once we get going it doesn’t always take us where we want to go.
If you’re someone who always waits until the last minute to do anything, you know this intimately.
Highly caffeinated goals create excitement on the front end and exhaustion on the back end.
The urgency gets you going. But you usually crash before arrive at your destination.
Needing the adrenaline of crisis means, while you outwardly appear successful, you’re never free. You need the next crisis to get motivated.
So how do you turn it around?
Remember that list of reasons you made for going into business in the first place?
- Great work with awesome clients.
- Vacations.
- Time with your family.
- Weekend adventures.
- Building an iron-clad financial future.
It’s time to have an intimate reunion with them. And put them back in the drivers’ seat, instead of the mad rush towards being the next genius, or having the biggest launch or the hottest TEDx talk.
There’s nothing wrong with big, ambitious goals, except when you get caught up in that ambition and lose touch with the deeper reasons that made you ambitious in the first place.
Drama, urgency and crisis are short-term fuel sources at best. And are unsustainable long term.
When you re-connect with your deeper why, you not only escape the endless, frenetic churn-hustle cycle.
You discover the ideas, a-ha’s and directions that can actually help you reach those ambitious goals faster.
Prioritize you.
Stop getting sucked into what everyone else is doing.
I can’t tell you how many times a client or colleague has come to me breathlessly asking, “Rob have you seen [ insert name of hot new training / thingamajobber here ]. Should I get it?”
When I ask them why, I’m usually told “everyone is doing it” or “My friend Mabel says it’s great!”
Which is the worst reason to do anything.
You are not “everyone”. You are certainly not your friend Mabel.
What “everyone” wants is not what you want.
And (trust me on this) you don’t want “everyone’s” business.
Because its more than likely “everyone” doesn’t have a business.
(Regardless of what they say on Facebook).
The problem is that nothing creates more drama than chasing the next big thing if it isn’t matched to what’s a priority for YOU.
Because you’re running yourself raw chasing it. But you’re not getting anywhere.
I’m not saying don’t invest in yourself.
I’m always investing in myself, and looking to expand my skill set.
Even if that puts a bigger drain on my reserves than I would like.
But I don’t invest because “everyone” is doing it.
I invest because I clearly see its my next step. It will get me results in a reasonable period of time.
And I am committed to focusing on it, studying it and consuming it.
Instead of letting it become “shelf help”.
Cause the truth is: Next month “everyone” is going to want something else. And the month after that. And the month after that.
I can’t think of a more reliable recipe for drama and exhaustion than that.
So by all means, invest in new tools and trainings.
But get really clear they are taking you where you want to go. And not where the herd wants to go.
Drama doesn’t show up where it knows its not welcome.
I’m not talking about the stuff we can’t control. Like:
Unforeseen illness.
Family crises.
Or the dog peeing on that $5,000 gown you were going to wear to the Oscars (just kidding).
I’m talking about the things we foist on ourselves over and over and over again.
Too many of us act in a way that’s like putting a big sign on our front door that says:
“Dear Drama:
The key is under the welcome mat. Make yourself at home.”
When we detach from the psychic need for drama …
When we no longer get a boost from the sparks it brings into our life …
When we get our kicks from the stuff we actually want …
And when we plan things out before jumping headlong into them …
We find the business we dreamed of can be the business we have.
