Monday, July 6, 2009

Cutting the Grass

Took advantage of a break in the rain yesterday morning and got around to finally cutting my lawns. Looking around the neighbourhood it was easy to see that I was the first on the block so to speak. Soon the sound of lawnmowers could be heard up and down the street as neighbours worked on their own lawns.



This phenomenon made me think of how it often is in business. As soon as someone does something to improve others are quick to follow. One clear example is the number of corporate presidents / CEO's / owners who do their own pitch on television. At one time you could count them on one hand now it seems to be all the rage. Some, unfortunately are not as good as others and could possibly be better off by not following the trend.


While my mind was spinning out of control so to speak, another thought occurred to me. It. appears home ownership has both an upside and a downside. The upside being that we have something to call our own and do with pretty much as we please. The downside is that we are responsible for keeping everything looking like it should.



Again, the similarity to owning and operating a business came to mind. One of the main reasons people give for opening their own business is to be their own boss. This being a very laudable purpose it often does not work out as expected. You merely change one boss for another. The new "boss" is you and/or your client base.


We find we are doing more and enjoying it less. Perhaps this is because our passion now has become a job. Perhaps it is because we are technicians who are good at doing one thing but the other aspects of business are just not our forte (to make a poor pun on a recent car commercial).


The challenge is to be able to put enough of ourselves into the business to make it a success while at the same time taking enough from the business to allow us to enjoy our success while we can. Every now and then we need to stop and ask ourselves a key question:



"Am I running my business or is my business running me?" The answer we get if it is an honest one can either stimulate us to keep doing what we are doing or stop doing what we are doing or perhaps start doing something different. Rather like coming to an interesection and deciding what to do depending on the colour of the traffic light.



What colour is your traffic light?








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