One of the Most Dangerous Things an Entrepreneur Can Say

I SHOULD BE ABLE TO DO EVERYTHING I think this is one of the most dangerous things you can ever say to yourself because it has the potential to destroy your confidence and your business. You might wonder why I’ve made such a strong statement. Here’s why… we are put on this earth for a short space of time. If we have the belief (and a belief is only something we keep saying to ourselves) that we have to be accomplished in every aspect of our life, that seems to me like a lot of time ‘attaining’ but not a lot of time ‘enjoying’. In the past, management and training literature emphasised the need to focus on acknowledging your strengths and quickly moving onto what you are weak at and how to remedy. More recently, the tide has been turning (which I think is a good progression) and now the focus is on understanding and appreciating your strengths more. It’s so important to acknowledge how good you are something and not taking it for granted. When you always focus on what you can’t do; your confidence falls, doubt and anxiety increases and it’s too easy to fall into a downward spiral of thinking about what a failure you are when in reality if you were to focus your mind and attention on your strengths and gifts, you would see how much you have to offer and in turn what your business can do for others. Your business depends on you working in your zone of genius 80-90% of the time (‘zone of genius’ is a term coined by Gay Hendricks) and when you run your own business, there are many facets of that business. If you had a job and you were Head of Marketing or a sales representative, you would focus solely on marketing or sales. You would not be concerned about what the Finance guys are doing or what the Production team are up to. It’s not the same when you have a business… suddenly you are all of the above! So this is a unique challenge you face. It’s important not to downplay how overwhelming it can be to the entrepreneur who is perhaps a one-(wo)man operation or manages a small team. When I advise my clients to focus on their strengths, talents and passions, I make an important distinction. Focusing on your strengths does not mean that if you are a poor speaker and this is part of your business, that you make no attempt to get better because you’re better at being behind the scenes. This is really important… if your weak area is negatively impacting you and your business’ success; this is something you have to work at. If, however, you are poor at maintaining your website and you hate technology, this is not something you should be spending hours learning. You can outsource this to somebody who loves this type of work and who will take a fraction of time to complete compared to you pulling your hair out and wasting time and money when it is not necessary. So there is an important distinction… focus on your strengths and work on improving the weak areas that are critical for your business. For everything else, find someone who can do it for you and save you a huge amount of time, money and stress!