Small Business Builder: Be it Resolved
— -- One component of entrepreneurial success, some veteran business owners say, is giving 100 percent of yourself — more, if you can — to your venture.
Terrible, wrongheaded advice, even though most of the “experts” who recommend that kind of singlemindedness don’t really mean it. They assume their listeners have good judgment and a healthy sense of self-preservation. That’s not a safe assumption; after all, you have to be a little bit crazy to go into business for yourself.
Sharpen the Saw
Many entrepreneurs are young and inexperienced in the ways of the world. They think they’re indestructible … that they can sacrifice sleep, good nutrition, relationships, recreation, personal and professional development, and all the other things that make life worth living … things without which “business success” is empty indeed.
It might help to think of yourself as a piece of expensive business equipment. Let’s say, for example, that you are a self-employed cab driver. Since your livelihood depends on having an automobile that runs reliably and economically, you take good care of your car, making sure that it gets regular lubrication, fluid replacement, brake inspections and so forth. You put fuel in the tank before it runs out of gas, and you buy new tires before the old ones wear smooth. It helps, of course, that vehicles have gas gauges and warning lights.
Unfortunately, people don’t. The warning signs that do exist are usually subtle and easily explained away or masked. You get headaches, you take painkillers; you get tired, you drink coffee; you get hungry, you eat french fries. Since you’re constantly working, at first you might not even notice friends and family members drifting away. Meanwhile, neglect is steadily taking its toll, just as it would if you never changed the oil in your taxi. Personal maintenance — the caring for your physical, mental, and spiritual health — does more than keep the “other” (nonbusiness) part of your life in balance; it makes your business-related activities more effective. Metaphorically, it’s referred to as “sharpening the saw.”
Putting Life on Hold
A close friend of mine, whose first business had failed, started another venture. Convinced that the first failure could have been avoided if she had just worked harder, she threw herself into the new endeavor. Business was brisk, and it seemed she just couldn’t catch up. She started staying up all night once a week, then a couple of times a week. She’d have time for sleep … exercise … friends … hobbies … after she got caught up.
The first warning was a light case of shingles, a painful rash that erupts when the “chicken pox virus” is reactivated in people whose immune systems are compromised by extreme stress or illness. The virus isn’t generally life-threatening, though the shingles patient can experience severe headaches, or “post-herpetic neuralgia,” for the rest of her life.
My friend ignored the warning, however, and continued to work excessively and sleep little. A few months went by, and she was felled by “the flu” — or so she believed, feeling achy and feverish. But “the flu” kept returning, and one Saturday she drove herself to the emergency room, where blood tests revealed an autoimmune disease, either rheumatoid arthritis or systemic lupus. In either case, an overfunctioning immune system attacks healthy cells; uncontrolled autoimmune disease can turn against the kidneys or the heart.
Lessons Learned the Hard Way
My friend takes several kinds of prescription drugs and, on a good day, has two or three naps and goes to bed before 9 p.m. She is having to rethink her financial and professional future.
Of course, if people listened to their elders and heeded warnings, the entire history of the world would probably fit in one slim volume and would certainly be much less interesting. Ever since Adam and Eve ate the fruit from the forbidden tree, people have had to learn their lessons the hard way.
My hope, at the true beginning of the new millennium, is that you will be wiser than most, certainly wiser than my friend was, for the sake of your health and your relationships as well as your business. Think of it this way: Shouldn’t you care for yourself at least as well as you care for your car?
An editor since the age of 6, when she returned a love letter with corrections marked in red, Mary Campbell founded Zero Gravity in 1984 to provide writing, editing and marketing services. Small Business Builder is published on Wednesdays.