There is something about writing your thoughts down that helps organize those thoughts.
Some have heard of the morning pages — writing three pages, hand written, stream of consciousness style.
As I write these words, I think about my own experience with handwritten notes. I’ll be exploring a series of real, human-generated blog posts here. Part of it is to help me organize my own thoughts, and, hopefully, in the meantime, some fellow entrepreneurs find some benefit from what I am writing down on these pages.
After years of working with many different entrepreneurs, I find that most entrepreneurs struggle with the next step. What is the next step? Entrepreneurs want to be successful, and if they knew which button to press to take massive action, they would press that button a thousand or ten thousand times to achieve success. The main issue is they do not know which button to press next, so they end up pressing 25 different buttons.
Here, I am referring to a button as some sort of action you might take. Call it a cold outreach, a cold phone call, a blog post, cold email — what have you. The word for this is clarity. Most entrepreneurs do not have clarity on what the next step should be when they are engaging in business. It takes time to settle down and find clarity. When you find clarity, you are able to take massive action and focus on the process instead of just the outcome; the outcome will find you.
Now, there is a component of being able to shift what you are doing when you don’t see any outcome and evolve the “quote unquote” button pushing. However, finding the next step with clarity is so important in business. Take that time to step back from the practitioner mindset in your business to learn what is the next thing I should be focused on in business to grow the business, to get the business more organized.
This is the whole concept of the e-myth. People start businesses that they are the practitioners of, and they end up finding themselves in a well-paid job because they are unable to step back and work on the business instead of working in the business.
In terms of that clarity, one of the things that I’m starting to do is step back a little bit more from the practitioning as I hire more folks to help me run the business day to day. I find myself with extra time to think about what’s next for the business. This has been a breath of fresh air and a totally new perspective for me.
What has been your experience in running a business and taking that step back from being a practitioner to being the business owner, the entrepreneur? Where are you in that phase? There’s a gradient from total practitioner to total entrepreneur business owner, and many of us find ourselves somewhere in between on that continuum. I’m going to continue to hire and build out time for myself to continue working on the business so that this business is capable of moving through the future in a focused way. What are you doing to do the same?
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