15 March 2008

Are you a slave to your business?

So you are a business owner! I've got a question for you.

Do you own your business, or does your business own you?

Ever since I went into my first serious business venture at the relatively tender age of 22, I've always had this vision -

My business is a machine that gives me what I want.
And in a general way that was to be able to:

  • do what I want
  • have whatever I wanted
  • whenever I wanted it.
In a shorter way, what I really wanted was freedom of choice. Options.

The basic plan was that I would spend some effort putting together this business machine to produce two things, lots of free time and lots of money. Equipped with these two rather useful commodities, I'd let my imagination take care of how to consume them.

The harsh reality is that most times my business ventures haven't produced the goods. And judging by many business folk I have chatted to over the years since starting out, I'm far from alone. In fact, more often than not, I've found the typical business owner is really a slave in a gilded cage - and that is when the business is successful!

When the business is not doing so well, it's more like being a slave on a ball and chain.

Unlocking the secrets of the business puzzle has been quite a long road for me. I don't pretend I've got the job done yet. But at least nowadays I do have the time to do the things I want to rather than the things I have to. I might not have mastered making enough money to buy all the toys I'd like just yet, but frankly that hasn't been what has proved the most difficult to achieve.

It was getting time freedom from my business that has proved to be the big challenge. Breaking the chains and getting out of the gilded cage.

And here is my confession. The problem was not the businesses - the problem was me!

I'd suggest that for so many business owners who find themselves slaves to their own business, the problem is with the owner too.

So this will be the theme of this blog - unlocking why and how we become slaves to our business. And how to fix it.

I'll be sharing my road to creating my own little business machine. My mistakes and my successes. And some of the stories of people I've met along the way.

And perhaps along the way something will touch you, and be the spark that let's you create a business machine that will give you all you want too.

Can you relate to any of this? Please let me know.

1 comment:

Ian Franks said...

Dave
Well put, I still have to learn to delegate. I do it well when I don't want to be involved in a process, but not with other things like quoting. So it is me.