King Loving Your Business

Rethink Your Relationship with Your Company and Make it Work for You
1. Auflage 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5445-1640-0
Verlag: Lioncrest Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 280 Seiten

Remember when you used to love your business? In some ways, you still do. But it can also feel like a trap. No matter what you try, your business can't run without you and it doesn't scale. It can be frustrating. Overwhelming. Exhausting. But you can't just walk away. You're committed to what you've created, have clients and staff you care about, and you don't want to work for someone else. Debbie King knows what it's like to feel trapped by a business you used to love. She felt that way for years before she made two fundamental shifts: she changed the way she thought about her business and the way she ran it. In Loving Your Business, Debbie shows you how to rethink your relationship with your business and reclaim your life. Instead of taking everything from you, your business can give you what you really want: more time, a sense of purpose, and ultimately, complete financial freedom. Learn how to leverage your brain and manage your mind so that you turn your company into a scalable asset that can run without you. That's a business you'll love owning (and other people will too). In fact, that's a business you can even sell when you're ready.

Autoren/Hrsg.

King, Debbie

Leseproben

Introduction
Driving down Route 66 in Washington, D.C., toward my office one April afternoon, a thought hit me like a rogue wave. I hate my business. I had poured fifteen of the best years of my life into my business. I was spending more than sixty hours a week running it. It was basically my identity. And I couldn’t stand it. The sudden feelings of overwhelm and dread were so intense that my knuckles gripping the steering wheel turned white. Then came the second, bigger wave. I’m not sure I like myself very much either. That wave pulled me under. I knew I hadn’t been happy, exactly, for a long time. I hadn’t had a good night of sleep in years; the dark circles under my eyes were now a permanent feature. I’d forgotten what the inside of a gym looked like. I’d gained weight and was eating and drinking too much. And I functioned in a constant state of low-level anxiety punctuated with occasional panic. When I walked through the office door, my heart would race, anticipating the problems waiting for me. All my relationships were strained to the breaking point because I was so tense and irritable. For years, I assumed this was just part of the deal and went with the territory of being an entrepreneur. But as I sat in my car that day I realized it must not be this way for everyone. If all entrepreneurs were unhealthy, unhappy, resented their businesses, and felt bad about themselves, there wouldn’t be so many of us. Anyway, I hadn’t always been miserable. I could still remember how exciting it felt to launch my technical consulting startup. I’d worked my way up from a room in my basement to a professional office filled with employees. Running my own business felt phenomenal in the beginning. I was doing exactly what I loved, exactly the way I wanted to do it. I remember being challenged every day, more than I’d ever been challenged before. I learned hard lessons about cash flow and managing people. I grappled with pricing strategies and struggled with estimates. I discovered the importance of marketing and sales and shelled out money for laptops, software, and support services. But it felt fun and exhilarating, because it was mine. As the business grew, the pace picked up, the complexity increased, and the stakes were higher. On the outside everything looked great—the business was scaling and making money. But inside, I was feeling frustrated, overwhelmed, and exhausted. I started doubting myself. Instead of leading a team creating state-of-the-art solutions, I was in react mode. Every day, my focus was on putting out fires. I didn’t run my business; it ran me—and it ran me into the ground. I was “successful” on the outside but miserable on the inside. I worked all the time and the rest of my life crumbled around me. That April afternoon, I asked myself, Is the problem that I no longer believe in my company, or myself? Do I still believe in the vision, or am I ready to quit? What I discovered was that deep down I did NOT want to quit, but I also wasn’t willing to continue living THIS life. There has to be a better way, I thought. I set out to find it. *** Business owners have it made, right? We own our companies, we decide how much money we make, how we spend our time, and who we serve. We’re masters of our schedules and our lives. We’re living the dream and have ultimate freedom— Record scratch. If you’re reading this book, you’re rolling your eyes at that description. While the rest of the world may picture us as self-made millionaires freed from the shackles of the nine-to-five, business owners know that the “freedom” of business ownership isn’t free at all. You’re proud that you beat the statistics and made it past the five-year mark, where most businesses fail. But it can still feel like everything is on the line, every day. Your money, your identity, and your freedom. The business can take all your time and wreak havoc on the rest of your life. Sometimes, you feel completely out of balance. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Burnout among us is common. When it happened to me, I was just…done. We’re high achievers by nature. We’re wired to do whatever it takes to succeed. We don’t give up when confronted with obstacles; instead, we work harder. Our achiever characteristics help us succeed in business but also lead us to think there is constantly something else we could or should be doing. We’re plagued by the gnawing feeling that no matter how much we do, we’re not doing enough or doing it right. And so, we pour ourselves into our companies. Being a successful business owner can become the core of our identity. Our self-worth can start to feel connected to the success of our business. When business is good, we’re good—and when there are problems, there’s something wrong with us. When you believe your business is your identity, your brain literally feels like your survival is at stake. You’ll put everything into the business and have nothing left. No wonder we don’t make time for vacations, let alone self-care or relationships. If you have a lifestyle or professional services business and you love it, then keep doing what you’re doing. But if that was the case, you probably wouldn’t be reading this book. If instead, you’re stressed, frustrated, and feeling trapped by your company, then you’re right where I was when I was driving to work that day. And this book is for you. What if your business didn’t feel like a ball and chain weighing you down every minute of every day? What if you loved your business again and rediscovered the feelings of excitement and freedom, and the sense of purpose you had when you first began your entrepreneurial journey? What if instead of working for your business, your business worked for you? It’s possible, and you can make it happen. That’s why I wrote this book. But it’s not the only reason. This book is also about what happens once you decide to turn your business into an asset, one that supports your life, not the other way around. I used willpower and grit to grow my business, but hit a wall once the company exceeded $1 million in revenue per year. The problem wasn’t my business. The problem was my mindset. The way I was thinking about myself, my team, my clients, and my services caused me to feel frustrated and overwhelmed. The belief that in order to succeed I had to control everything not only limited the company’s growth, it left me exhausted. I stayed stuck at that revenue level for almost a decade. I tried Rockefeller Habits, Scaling Up, EOS®…. But systems are just tools. If your mindset and strategy aren’t aligned, the best system in the world won’t get you the results you want. No matter how many people I hired, podcasts I listened to, and workshops I attended, I just couldn’t see how to grow the company without working more hours. It felt like my business was an adversary who “stole” my time and the best years of my life. The business was the perpetrator responsible for my misery. Looking back, no wonder I felt trapped, right? How can you simultaneously grow your business while resenting and trying to escape it? But I couldn’t see it. I felt disconnected from my business and paid a high price for it—damaged relationships, destructive habits, depleted health, and years of my life lost to unhappiness. And oh, by the way, I never even thought about whether I was building a company that was an asset that had intrinsic value on its own. Fortunately, you don’t need a decade’s worth of frustration to motivate you. If your business makes you feel stressed out and burned out; if you feel overwhelmed and frustrated; if you don’t have time—or feel like you can’t take time—for yourself or your friends and family, and the people you love; if you try not to even feel your emotions because you think they’ll slow you down even more; then it’s not only time to change your business, it’s time to change your life. I learned the hard way that to get results in my business—and to create a life beyond my business—I needed to start with managing my own mind. Like any good student, I went looking for help in books. I didn’t find much. While there are some great books out there on the mechanics of running and growing a business, and even a few good ones on how to sell a business, those books couldn’t reach me. They...