Read this story and see if you identify with the experience of Entrepreneurial Paul!!!
Your first reaction may be, Oh I sure do. You sit and think about it and ask yourself what is Entrepreneurial Chaos! Then you run a start to feel defensive and begin to think “no, I have it all under control.” Read the short story below and see if you identify, even in the slightest way, you will know you have Entrepreneurial Chaos. The story is a conversation an Entrepreneur had with me a short while ago. He wanted to see if The Sales & Management Group could help him. In order to protect the innocent, I will call this person Entrepreneurial Paul.
Entrepreneurial Paul was a corporate executive that recently entered the world of Entrepreneurship. He dreamed of all the freedom, excitement, fulfilling days and hassle free life he felt Entrepreneurs have. After a few years in business, he realized being an Entrepreneur was not as glorious as he had dreamed. He wasn’t having fun anymore and he felt that something was wrong; he just couldn’t put his finger on it. His business has grown; he was hiring more people, he was making a living and some years a good living. Then he told me about his morning, just before he got to my Fort Lauderdale office. Here it is:
Paul got up this morning and went to do his exercises. He turned the computer on in his home office…just check his e-mail. Wait, he realized he just checked it last night at 11pm when he went to sleep…He checked it anyway! During this time he saw a stack of papers on his desk that he just had to look through to make sure he is not missing anything important; he felt he could always cancel his appointment with the Sales & Management Group.
Thirty minutes later, Paul finally got around to doing his exercises while watching the business channel. Of course, he had to stop and listen to the story about a company he had stock in.
Ten minutes into his exercise he realized that he was running late so he cut his exercise short and went to take a shower. He is running through all the things he had to do today and for the rest of the week. He was also thinking about the employee he had to fire and the sales people he needs to hire. Don’t forget the plans he has for growing his business. Paul feels it’s ok to think like this in the shower because he saw a commercial that proved that business people think of great ideas in the shower!
Time to get dressed; he was trying to remember if our meeting was business causal or should he were a suit (it makes no difference to me). Great! He selected the suit figuring it’s easier to dress down if the meeting is more causal. Paul stopped and congratulated himself on knowing that factoid of business dress. However, this triggers a flood of thoughts about the old days in corporate America where he wore only the finest suits and couldn’t wait to be an Entrepreneur so he could wear what he wanted to wear. Just then he stopped, got undressed and put on his causal pants and a silk Tommy Bahama shirt. Ahhh, now that feels better.
Paul had to leave immediately, even to be 20 minutes late. He guzzled down his coffee and some cereal, grabbed his palm pilot and off he went into his car. Once in his car, he reviewed the business books on tape and decided to listen to the sports talk show to relax. Of course the conversation is designed to incite your emotions and he is now cursing all of his losing teams, the old people on the road and how crowded the roads are in South Florida. Then he realized that crowed roads meant more potential business for him and he began to think about all those ideas that can make him rich.
Paul began to think of all the ways to grow his business; most of them over and over again, working out the details in his car, on a plane or while watching TV. He knows he wrote the ideas down somewhere, and for one reason or another he has not implemented the majority of them. This triggers a flood of remorse over not implementing enough new ideas. He begins to think he got complacent. What can he do to implement new ideas? He is taking a first step by going to an Entrepreneurial consulting firm like the Sales & Management Group. But wait…what if they just give him more ideas! He thinks of all the business coaches that he has spoken to. All they did was give him more to think about, they didn’t ever do anything. Paul now thinks of all the things he could do if he cancels the meeting, but he sees these guys every week at a networking meeting so he may as well get it over with. Plus, he reminds himself that Marc never pushed him, and he always said that the majority of my investment is based on productivity, and meeting pre-arranged goals…my goals!
Now Paul, while still driving, began to review the calls and to-dos he has to do today. Sure he went to that time management class while he worked in corporate America, however he doesn’t have time to manage his time right now, and those trainers don’t understand the time constraints that Entrepreneurs have. Back to his to-do list… Oh darn! Forgot to put two to-dos and three calls that he has to make. Paul can’t write on his blackberry while driving so he jots it down on a Starbucks napkin he has on his front seat, from one of his four large cups of highly caffeinated coffee they sell.
Paul’s blackberry is buzzing with e-mails, half of which are junk. However he still checks to see if it is something important. Now he wonders why he hasn’t received the e-mails he has been waiting for and why he has not received any calls yet this morning? Then he realizes that it is only 7:30am; he made our meeting for 7:30 am so it wouldn’t interfere with his day, and that’s why he hadn’t gotten any calls. This did not soothe the cell phone beast in Paul; he had to make some calls, and he had to know what was going on. Paul quickly dialed his office assistant on her way to the office to make sure she was going to be on time (she hadn’t been late in three years). Then he called his salespeople just to confirm that they were on their way to their networking events, something he did on his way home last night!
When Entrepreneurial Paul got to my office, it was obvious that he was already experiencing Entrepreneurial Chaos, so I got him a cup of coffee and asked him to tell me about his morning.
This event happened months ago, Paul is doing fine and slowly replacing his Entrepreneurial Chaos with the strategies, tactics and philosophy of the “Entrepreneurial Way.” More on that in later columns…the goal of this column, is to get you to ask yourself if you are experiencing even a little of what Entrepreneurial Paul went through.
In conducting the research for this article, we found that this is a much bigger problem than anyone on our team thought. With more and more people becoming entrepreneurs, and the business environment getting more and more complex, we have decided to meet this problem head on and create a seminar that would help Entrepreneurs eliminate Entrepreneurial Chaos!
Let us know about your Entrepreneurial Chaos revelations. First, acknowledge you may have a problem. Next, write it down, hopefully in this blog. Then take action to make your Entrepreneurial experience be all that you knew it would be. Over the next month, Mybizuniverse.com will conduct a survey of Entrepreneurs that will culminate in a seminar on how to eliminate Entrepreneurial Chaos. Our goal is to have this seminar rolled out in late March of 2007.
Entrepreneurs enjoy the journey! If you aren’t then perhaps you are experiencing Entrepreneurial Chaos!
