Employed by Your Business?

by Kim Whitehead

When dreams become mired in painful tasks, paralysis and dread set in with the irritation and discomfort of a wet wool blanket.  Team meetings, voicemails, itineraries, newsletters, social media, and presentations are the seemingly tangible fibers of your company that can cause your skin to itch and your eyes to roll.  Just reading this, the beginnings of a migraine may be forming.  Riding the waves of new business growth or a successful one experiencing a reduction in flow, you curse (hypothetically, of course) the economy for causing things not to flourish the way you’ve envisioned.  Why? You’ve become caught in the misdirected ambition of self-employment.  It’s time to break free.

By launching or managing your company, you have escaped or offset the disillusionment of working for someone else only to be harnessed by a new master – your business.  It isn’t the largesse of the promise that is overwhelming.  It is the stretching, the pulling of the required enlargement of your skills into new territory you haven’t mastered yet.  You write source code with lightning speed, but speaking to potential angel investors is a challenge. You were Saleswoman of the Year five times in a row at your last job, so you didn’t hesitate to launch your own PR firm. Yet the how-to book you’ve been asked to complete is sitting undone because you don’t know how to focus and write.  Hiring someone else or even a team of people doesn’t erase it.  After all, you still need to know whether the product, pitch, or plan is good enough to call it your own.  Unfortunately, you left the 9-5 gig for the job that keeps you up at night.  If you’re currently employed and are building your business on the side, you are now dismayed at having two employers to please. 

There is a solution.  It is a guaranteed method that you can use over and over again to shed the weight of project and business management. It will set you free from self-employment into entrepreneurship. In fact, it will not only release you from the stress of making your business a job, but will also propel you into a freedom that launches you into quality and output more advanced that that which you are currently producing.  You won’t end up doing it all yourself. You’ll know how to pull in the resources and team to make it happen. It works every time. But beware of your motive. The “money” goal will cause it to fail every single time.

If you need to test whether the motive of what you’re trying to conquer is for money, consider volunteering for a month or two in a mega-business akin to the one you envision in your dreams.  It is a challenging role under the direction of full-time managers or entrepreneurs with the ultimate potential of being a CEO. Without a paycheck, when you’re being stretched to your maximum, can you handle the weight of deadlines, critique, expectations, and the absence of guaranteed recognition for everything you do?  What do you do when you just don’t feel like it? You’ve landed a coveted role.  It’s your version of “The Apprentice” and a lot is riding on this. How do you respond?

You know how you’d respond. Not the ideal you, but the real version of you that you have to master daily.  You have already volunteered for the CEO role in your own business.  Add in the paycheck that you desire to have, and you’ve just transformed your volunteer role into work.   There is no amount of money that can motivate you endlessly.  As you grow into it, you’ll desire a new end and will want more.  Your paralysis has now shifted into full mental and bodily lockdown, and you’re ready for the solution.  Don’t let the simplicity keep you from implementing it.   Here it is.

Envision the future you want in order to break free from the paralysis that is constricting your forward movement.  Take 10 minutes now and select an aspect of your anticipated reality. Visualize it using all of your senses.  For example, picture yourself on stage giving the keynote speech to an audience of 10,000.  Bask in the accolades and congratulate yourself on how good you look with the new haircut and suit. See the press releases from the previous month and hear the announcements of the sold-out event over the radio, television, and the internet. People are coming from all over the world just to hear you speak for an hour. The headlines are flying across the screen of your mind. It’s so good that you have to write it down.

Within 15 minutes, you capture the best of the press releases hailing you at your peak. With pen flying across paper, the smile on your face is growing so wide it almost hurts.  Pay close attention to the flickering thought that is starting to creep in.  Oh, yeah. It’s the reminder that you have to edit the press release for the new service launch. The half-completed draft has been on your desk for a week because you weren’t able to quite figure out how to craft it compellingly.  Now you know how.  Go do it.  It will be easy this time around. You’ve just done it.  With the weight of the to-do list gone, your vision has directed you to the answer.  A new skill developed.  It is an accomplishment for your website, Facebook page, and Twitter.  You’re in motion. And now, the money will come.

© 2009 The Brilliance Network - August 17, 2009