For the first time, I’m confessing my first year in business to hopefully help those in your freshman business year.
My 7 unheard start-up confessions are:
1. I thought because I was a Corporate America success I would be a successful start-up entrepreneur.
I was successful as a company executive, but I learned it’s different than running your own company. I liken it to something else I know a little about; it’s like being a great peacetime soldier never experiencing combat. Your cumulative experiences shape you, but you really don’t know how you’re going to do until you go to battle.
2. I thought more about work than my family.
I talked a good game about importance of life + work, but if I’m being honest, my self-identity was tied with making my business a success.
3. I rarely talked or listened to God.
I thought I had a great relationship with God before I started my company. I even served in full-time ministry after I left the military. I just got busy and took depending on God for granted. Then I fooled myself into thinking He forgot me when I needed him to bail me out.
4. I became fat, again.
Since leaving the military I’ve struggled with maintaining a healthy weight. I promised myself and my wife when I started my business, then I’d have time to get in shape again. I just gained more weight and didn’t keep my promises.
5. I pretended everything was perfect in my personal and professional life.
It was important for me to not have my family and friends worry about me since starting my business. I thought I could bear the burden of normal worries for everybody and I failed to fool the people who loved me the most.
6. I wasn’t certain of my business efforts, even though I was certain I would be successful in business.
I always believed I would create a successful business; I just didn’t know I would be a three year overnight success.
7. I didn’t feel the hardship, even though I experienced hardship.
Being a paratrooper taught me how to be miserable. In fact, I think it’s my competitive advantage. I was selfish, because even though I can handle hardship, my responsibility as a father and husband is not to have my family willingly experience hardship.
Things are different for me now and I’m learning the lesson of truth in circumstances.
Ahhh…it feels good to confess I was the only start-up entrepreneur who struggled my first year in business…
What are your freshman business year confessions that may help another?
Great post. I love the confessions. It isn’t easy pointing out one’s own blind spots. Here are a few of my first-year misconceptions:
1. I thought I had so many word of mouth clients, I’d never need to market.
2. Mentally, I never really “quit” my job. I my head, I was always working for someone else. My “boss” (internally) was usually my partner. Unfortunately, since I have authoritarian-parent issues, this wasn’t a good thing.
3. I had no plan for surviving during the lean times (since I didn’t really think I’d have any).
@Susan, thanks for taking time to comment. I really love your misconceptions (If a Berkley Grad can have misconceptions, there is hope for the rest of us:))
It’s true, we rarely have a contingency plan when starting our business. I always recommend to start-ups to establish “markers” during the good times, so when the bad times are upon us we can look upon these times with less emotion and shock because we planned what action we would take if we found ourselves in this position. Kind of takes the emotion out of the decision making process.
For example, I established markers for when I would hire someone or when I might need to seek financial assistance. Sure helped me.
In my first three years, I was unaccountably sane and humble. My experience is that the two go together.
I chose to grow my business slowly, planning to have 6, 12, and 24 individual coaching clients at the end of my first, second, and third years, respectively. My strategy was to share my experience, strength, and hope–and the ups and downs–rather than making grand promises about who I was and what I could do for folks. I trusted God and was willing to walk through the fog bank, taking my directions one step at a time.
It worked beautifully.
What hasn’t worked so well is trying to hold onto success or wrestle additional successes from life by brute force. I confused knowing how to grow a business with knowing why to grow it. I got nervous about protecting what I had and found it harder and harder to slow down and listen and trust.
In retrospect, the wisest thing I’ve ever done in business is to listen deeply to a Voice other than my own.
@Molly Ahhh Yes, that still small voice that I so often minimize until either circumstances or truth causes me to listen. I know it well…
I can so relate to what you said about “wrestle additional success…by brute force.” I’m a classically trained “bull in a China closet.” I get pinned by this force often. A few things obvious, but overlooked things I’m learning about success and significance were learned from two great books:
The Power of Purpose by Richard Leider
Halftime and Gameplan by Bob Buford
I see clearly after reading those books. Let me know if you decide to read yourself.
Thanks, Matthew. I will check out those books.