Have you heard this lately?
by Jon on 04/11/05 at 5:28 pm
1 comment
“Things are really hectic at the moment”.
This seems to be the number one weapon in the entrepreneur’s arsenal of comments. Today, again, I heard a small business owner complain about how “hectically busy” she is, and how “things are really hectic at the moment”. It seems to be the magic excuse for when deadlines are missed, but also the most common depiction of life as an entrepreneur.
Wasn’t the whole idea about being self-employed to have some kind of control over your working environment? Yet business owners remain stressed out, overworked and unhappy.
Last week I asked the philosophical question, “What is it that entrepreneurs really want?”. I’m sure that nobody would want to spend their working lives overwhelmed and unable to cope.
My point: the experience of entrepreneurship that many business owners have is not a happy one. They are no closer to getting what they want out of life than when they left their old job.
My observation: the entrepreneurship vibe is a tricky one to get right, to be happy in. I think we have got to start thinking smarter about how we do business. We need to be more careful about the positions that we place ourselves in. Our happiness is at stake!
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Andrew
Nov 4th, 2005
Most small businesses are desperate for any work that comes along, and so they take on every client who will pay. Are we allowed to choose the clients that we are willing to work for? It may mean another month of surviving on Salti-Crax, but perhaps it would allow us more time and energy to deliberately build the business we currently only dream about.