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This might sound a little implausible, but reading a 70 page e-book curled up on my sofa one morning last week was honestly one of my favourite experiences since starting my coaching practice two years ago. (Clearly I don’t get out much).
Some of you may know that I’m a coach, writer and workshop leader for Careershifters, the leading UK organisation for people changing career. Careershifters provide practical guidance, inspiration and support through their website www.careershifters.org and monthly workshops in London.
 The e-book I was reading was The Careershifters Guide. The Guide is based on everything the Careershifters team have learnt from the past 4 years speaking to hundreds of successful career changers and experts. Their 70 page downloadable book takes you step-by-step through the career change process - from figuring out the career that’s right for you to how to handle the practicalities of making that change.
It was a real pleasure to read something that echoed so many of my own thoughts about “Life” - and the part our careers play in living a good one. And I loved the tone of the Guide - down to earth, funny, and decidedly non-cheesy. I felt in the company of a kindred spirit.
If you don’t want to settle for an OK job - if you’re looking for work that will make you feel like you’ve given your life it’s best shot - I can whole-heartedly recommend The Careershifters Guide.
The Careershifters Guide is a joy to read, as well as being very informative. And best of all, it’s focused on action - taking small steps one after the other that will get you there in the end.
The Careershifters Guide is currently on sale at a discounted price to celebrate its launch - just £19 instead of £25.
Just click on the button below to read more about the Guide and get your own copy.
I’m confident that you will consider it money and time well spent - but if for any reason you’re not satisfied with the Guide, Careershifters are offering you your money back, so you really can’t lose!
Not long after starting my coaching practice I delivered a workshop to young Chinese professionals on creating the perfect CV.
I was shocked to discover that the majority of participants were simply incapable of naming something they were good at – despite them all being competent English speakers with better jobs than most of their peers.
Half-way through the workshop, one shy twenty-year-old went mysteriously missing. I learnt later that she had fled to the sanctuary of toilets until the stressful “identify your skills” exercise was over.
It was very sad. But unfortunately, it’s not just young Chinese professionals who struggle to identify what they’re good at. I’ve spoken to countless people who want to change career direction but say they “have no skills” – or no transferable skills at any rate.
This “no skills” dilemma affects both generalists and specialists, though in different ways:
You are a generalist if…
You have quite a vague-sounding job title, like “project manager.” You know a little about a lot of things, but there’s always someone who is more highly skilled than you in any field you care to name.
In fact, you frequently find yourself wondering what exactly you do all day. You spend a lot of time speaking to various stakeholders within and outside your organisation, but you never have anything that concrete to show for it (or not anything you can point to and say “that was down to me”).
The trick for generalists is to name those invisible skills that you are employing, even if it doesn’t always feel like it.
You are a specialist if…
You have the opposite problem. It’s all too clear what your skills are – they’ve become inextricably linked with your professional identity. You are an auditor/ IT programmer/vascular surgeon/chiropodist. You want to do something else but your current trade is all you know.
The trick for specialists is to recognise that your technical skill is just one of the many skills you have acquired over the course of your professional life. For example, a good chiropodist will have highly developed people/communication skills as well as knowing how to sort out your feet.
Bring on the 3 pronged attack!
Say you’ve had a good think, and you’ve teased out your invisible skills or identified the broader skill-set you’ve acquired. Do you wholeheartedly believe that these skills are true of you? The problem with relying solely on self-reflection is that we may fear we’re simply coming up with a subjectively rosy view of ourselves.
So bring on the 3 pronged attack! Ask 3 other people what they consider you are best at. We shine in different ways in different situations, so to get a well rounded view, ask
- A family member
- A close friend
- A co-worker
Ask each person to cite a specific instance where you showed that skill. You want hard evidence to dispel any self-doubt.
Pin down your feedback
Watch out for feedback like “you’re really enthusiastic” or “you’re great with people”.
Enthusiasm is a personality trait or strength, not a skill. A trait is anything which describes how you go about doing what you do e.g. determined, honest, meticulous, patient. By all means collect and appreciate these strengths though, as you’ll need to understand how to use them in your job search or new business venture.
“Great with people” is lovely to hear but too vague. So interrogate! In what way precisely are you good with people – what is the exact skill?: managing teams, cross- cultural communication, persuading, leading, resolving conflict? People on a one to one basis, or people in a group? Certain types of people, or everyone and his dog?
Attack your “no skills” fears with these 3 effective prongs, and you’ll never be that poor person taking a tactical loo break.
One of the main reasons we stay stuck in a job we don’t like is that it pays us well, or at least adequately. We reason, “well, maybe my job isn’t so great, but at least I can pay the mortgage/fund my kids’ numerous after school activities/go on that Caribbean holiday/justify my daily cake habit.”
Understandably, we’re reluctant to relinquish our financial security to chase a hazy dream. No good can come of it: we’ll eke out the rest of our days in a cardboard box under Waterloo Bridge, fighting with the seagulls for food scraps thrown by passing tourists.
However, whilst a career change (particularly if you’re setting up a business) will almost inevitably require a financial sacrifice in the short term, it needn’t be one of unbearable proportions. And remember, in the long term, fulfilling work does NOT have to mean less pay. In fact if you find something you love to do, you’ll get really good at it - and the chances are you’ll make more money than you did previously.
So in the meantime, here are 7 ideas for funding your dream whilst living your life - without seagulls for neighbours:
1. Cut back
This is a great starting point as it’s directly within your control and the changes you make will reinforce to yourself that you mean business.
So take a hard look at your expenses and see where you can cut back. Take away coffee is a well-publicised example of a needless expense! Your daily Starbucks could be costing you over £600 a year. Also see if you can get a better deal on car or home insurance (or do without the car altogether).
Mobile phones are another obvious area to make a quick saving. Not SO long ago we all survived without them. Why not cancel your contract and try out a mobile-free lifestyle for a few months? Or if that thought is too horrendous, consider converting to pay as you go.
Check out Martin Lewis’s site www.moneysavingexpert.com for a head-spinning number of ways to cut back without hurting…!
2. Moonlight
Start small, edging into your dream whilst holding down your current job. Keep up your professional standards, but don’t throw good years after bad: limit the time and energy you devote to a career you have mentally abandoned. Maybe this means leaving at 6pm three days a week, or making sure you take your lunch breaks. You’ll free up precious time and head space to:
- Take an evening course
- Do some internet research
- Set up brain-picking lunches with people who’ve done what you’d like to
- Test your business product or service - sell samples to friends or take on freelance projects
- Acquire relevant work experience - by volunteering or shadowing someone.
(If you can’t do this in the evening, try negotiating with your employer that you work one day a week at home. Then spend part of the day getting hands-on experience in your new field,and catch up on your workload that evening).
3. Reassess the “need” to retrain
I know I just mentioned evening courses, but before signing up, do ask experts in your chosen field whether they think a qualification is definitely necessary.
If you want to be a doctor I guess you can’t avoid medical school. But we often vastly underrate our transferable skills. And sometimes we enrol on courses because it makes us feel like we’re doing something tangible and positive, when actually there are more practical (but scarier and less immediately obvious) things we could do which would move us forward more quickly - like the connecting and shadowing mentioned above.
So check first and it could be that you can scratch re-training expenses from your list of financial worries.
4. “Sell out” for a couple of years
With moonlighting, you keep your job but invest energy in starting up the new you on the side. With the sell out approach, you pour all your energy into maximising the earning potential of your current job, creating a nest egg to fund your dream later down the line.
This strategy is most effective where you work in the type of role that a) has a high base salary and b) rewards performance. Also consider converting to contract work - it’s less secure but often you can command a much higher rate than you would earn as a permanent employee.
5. Use your savings
I know, no-one likes to raid their savings. But if you’re facing a short term drop in income, and you can’t cut back sufficiently on your lifestyle, using personal savings is one of the simplest ways to bridge the gap.
Decide up front the amount you are willing to invest and the time period you are willing to subsidise your transition, and stick to it. Assign your savings to support a fixed expense, like a percentage of your rent or mortgage, rather than using them on daily living expenses, as these can creep upwards.
6. Borrow
Friends and family are an obvious first port of call although with equally obvious dangers if things go wrong. Other sources of borrowing are banks and, if you’re think of starting a business, angel investors. The Business Link website, a free business advice and support service, has a comprehensive article outlining the merits and risks of the various funding sources: www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detail?
r.l1=1073858805&r.l3=1076795303&r.lc=en&type=RESOURCES&
itemId=1076795328&r.l2=1073859146&r.s=sc
(Although bound up in red tape, government grants are also available for some types of businesses. Again see Business Link for details).
7. Move overseas
I saved the most drastic for last! You might initially gulp at bit at this one but it’s a strategy that’s close to my heart.
I moved to China when my daughter Elsa was 3 months old. For the past 4 years my child care costs have been £50 a week for up to 40 hours’ work, including 2 evenings’ babysitting.
Ayi (like a nanny) is a lovely, warm lady who Elsa considers her Chinese grandmother - and she’s the reason Elsa is now fluent in Mandarin (sadly unlike her mother).
Without any doubt the lower cost of living I enjoy here made my own career change more viable, gave me breathing space to experiment, and has allowed me to work fewer hours, so that I can spend most afternoons with my daughter.
Obviously you’ve got to want to live overseas! - but if you have any sort of inkling in that direction, do consider it seriously, particularly if it’s to somewhere with a lower cost of living than the UK (and that doesn’t narrow your options much does it!).
You remember the classic fairy tale. Cinderella flees the Royal Ball at midnight, accidentally leaving behind one glass slipper. The captivated Prince Charming picks it up and searches the land to find its beautiful owner.
All sorts of hopeful candidates, including Cinderella’s evil ugly stepsisters, try to force their feet into the Prince’s glass slipper. But it just doesn’t fit – even, in some versions of the tale, after the stepsisters have chopped off bits of their feet (ugh) in a desperate attempt to win the Prince.
I’m ashamed to say that in the early days of my working life I was a lot like the ugly step sisters. I tried to make something that wasn’t meant for me fit.
Instead of looking inward, and understanding myself better – what I truly enjoyed and why – I looked outward. I focused on professions I’d heard of, that my family and peers respected, and spoke to the limited range of organisations that attended my university’s recruitment days. So in my first career, as a solicitor, I ended up shoe-horning myself (forgive the pun!) into a slipper that not only didn’t fit it gave me blisters.
It’s easy to do. At some point, we’ve probably all tried to squeeze ourselves into a mould - to be someone we’re not - whether to get a job or to hold on to a flagging relationship. We humans have such a power of denial, we often don’t realise at the time what we’re doing. So here are a few clues:
You know you’re an Ugly Step Sister when…
- You find yourself led by what others want, rather than yourself
When I was applying for my law training contract, I had 4 or 5 template cover letters. One explaining why I really wanted to work for a big firm, one extolling the virtues of small, niche firms, one detailing my (non existent) passion for EU law… you get the idea. The sad thing is, I thought I was being really clever.Are you forcing any of your responses to job applications? Or designing your business too conservatively, around what you think the market wants - as opposed to experimenting with what you’d love to bring to it? (I’m all for listening to potential customers, but haven’t we all been seduced by an innovative product or service we didn’t even know we wanted? Tamagotchis, anyone?! )
- All your enjoyment comes from your personal life
Your Friday nights out, gorgeous new boy/girlfriend, surfing addiction or kids are all that keep you going.(You realise this when every Sunday evening you get that “oh no it’s Monday” tomorrow seasick feeling in the pit of your stomach).
- You lack confidence in your skills
In fact, you can’t understand why you haven’t been fired, but expect it’s coming.
You know you’re Cinderella when…
- You ask yourself the question
“at the end of my professional life, what would I feel proud of having accomplished?”– and you realise you are on the path to achieving those things.
- If you magically overnight became as rich as Bill Gates, you’d still be doing what you’re doing.
- You suspect that occasionally, you bore your long-suffering friends with excited accounts of what you’re up to, though they’re usually too polite to tell you.
Which were you? If you’re the Ugly Sister, don’t despair. Remember the words of George Eliot “It’s never too late to be who you might have been.”
Resolve to transform into Cinderella. Your first step is to get brutally honest about who you are. For 5 tips on how to do this, read my earlier blog post Finding Out What You Really Want – How Getting Naked Helps
We all know that being positive is a Good Thing. But as we get older, it’s not that easy to break long-held habits of negative, self-defeating thinking.
I wonder if it’s because our thoughts are both so familiar and invisible that we don’t always appreciate their serious effect.
Imagine that every negative thought we had was represented visually and stuck permanently right in front of our noses. Like pasting up a sheet of gloomy wallpaper each time we are down on ourselves. I bet we’d be shocked at how quickly we’d be living in the most depressing house!
That’s why I like psychologist Martin Seligman’s ABCDE model for developing a more optimistic outlook. It forces us to understand the consequences of our negative thoughts…and this slap-in-the face realisation is a powerful motivating force for change.
Here’s an example of how Seligman’s model works:
A stands for adversity. Identify an adverse or difficult situation
e.g. you don’t like your job, but previous attempts to change career have been unsuccessful.
B listen for the beliefs you automatically have when the difficult situation occurs.
“I tried to change before and it didn’t work. I’ll never earn what I need to doing something I like. People can’t have it all - no-one likes their job that much anyway.” (note the black and white, all or nothing thinking - characteristic of negative beliefs).
C realise the consequences of those beliefs.
You don’t try again. Or you try half-heartedly because you don’t really believe there’s a viable alternative - and that semi attempt naturally ends in another failure, affirming your original belief. Effectively, you accept the status quo for the rest of your life.
D stands for disputation. Dispute or argue with your negative belief, using logic and evidence.
“It’s not true that no-one likes their jobs. My sister’s flatmate does. So does that bloke I met at that party last week. So if it’s possible for them, why not for me?
And why should one failure pre-determine the outcome of my next attempt? I must be able to draw lessons from that last experience that I can put to use this time.
As to the money, have I really properly investigated that or am I just assuming the worst? What are the facts?”
(Notice the use of evidence and logic)
E stands for the energy that you get when you dispute your negative belief successfully. Notice how much lighter, more energetic, and positive you feel.
In my view, the C in this model - consequences - is the crucial turning point. Without C, you’re stuck expressing B, all those negative beliefs, in just another evening of moaning down the pub. But the problem is you’re anaesthetised to it.
If we can steel ourselves to look the consequences of our negativity square in the face, the grimness of that picture forces us to adopt a more optimistic outlook, and act.
 - Photo credit: flickr user fernallan
As a relatively new blogger I know it’s important to spend some time getting acquainted with the experts. My favourite is Pamela Slim of Escape From Cubicle Nation. She always manages to sound like a real person, which is harder than you’d imagine. This “living your dreams” territory can be a minefield of earnestness. Every time I hear words like “authentic” or “empowered” I battle to slap down my middle finger as it twitches up towards my mouth, seemingly compelled to shove itself down my throat as if I was a 4 year old kid and you’d just suggested brussel sprouts for dinner.
Somehow Pam manages to write about self-development topics in a way that is funny, down to earth and practical. Her recent post Let The Wild Rumpus Start, talks about the importance of using fresh, simple words and is a great example of her style. It has inspired me to re-double my efforts not to sound like I’ve swallowed a whole library of self help books.
Her post made me think. The words we use reflect how we think about something. So if we use long and earnest words, chances are we are thinking v-e-r-y e-a-r-n-e-s-t-l-y about that subject. And whilst I believe that we must be serious “at bottom” - we must think hard about what we want from life and muster the courage to go for it - we shouldn’t lose our sense of grace and humour in the process.
Aside from being numbingly dull to listen to, I don’t think being earnest actually helps us very much. If we define a problem in ponderous terms, how creatively will we aproach its solution? By contrast, if we don’t take ourselves QUITE so seriously, we free our minds to think of escape holes, options, and different ways of doing things.
How can you express a serious issue you’re facing, in a way that actually motivates you to deal with it?
Sophisticated time management tools, techniques and theories abound: go here and knock yourself out with a comprehensive overview – Pareto, activity logs, Locke’s goal setting theory, it’s all there.
But I’d like to focus on two very simple ways we can free up our time, by stopping doing things.
Recently I’ve made a great “stop doing” decision, and wasted an appalling amount of time on something I should never have done in the first place.
Clever Me
A year ago I co-founded Viva, a professional development and networking organisation for women in Beijing. The Viva organising committee are a fantastic group of positive, funny women so the event planning was never a drag – we even held our meetings over a glass of wine in a local restaurant.
Problem: this year I’ve been increasingly interested in motivational speaking, so I decided to join Toastmasters, to develop my public speaking skills. Unfortunately, Toastmasters meets four evenings a month, and I was already spending two evenings a month planning and attending Viva events.
I knew if I did both I’d end up tired, de-motivated and resentful. It was a wrench, because Viva was very close to my heart, but I decided I’d have to let it go.
The upshot is, Viva have elected a new president and are going from strength to strength. And, apart from the moment of terror that strikes just before I get called to the stage, I am hugely enjoying the whole Toastmasters experience.
Lesson: A painful sacrifice is worth it if it’s for something you want even more
(Very) Stupid Me
I recently needed to buy a phone, so I duly trundled off to Carrefour. Returning hours later (Carrefour contains all sorts of diverting goodies) I plugged in my proud purchase.
Very odd. The phone would ring, but when I picked it up I couldn’t hear anyone. I asked friends, but they were baffled. I made endless calls from my mobile to the China telecom people, but they insisted there was no problem with the line.
For two weeks I racked up mobile charges before eventually making the return trip to Carrefour. I thrust the offending phone at a young male assistant, who casually unplugged the receiver from the back of the phone (where the line is supposed to go in) and re-plugged it in the neat little receiver hole at the side. My phone worked.
HOW stupid did I feel? Ruminating in the taxi on the way home, I reminded myself that I had already sworn to delegate anything remotely technical OUT of my life. Why had I forgotten this?
Lesson: Stop doing what you’re bad at. (and plug the receiver in at the side, not the back).
If I had asked Elsa’s nanny (who is more technically-minded PLUS able to read Chinese instructions) to go to the shops for me, I would have had a phone that worked and two saved afternoons for taking my daughter to the park, or writing a couple of blog posts.
Stop doing what you’re bad at is “the one thing you need to know” in the book of that name by strengths expert Marcus Buckingham.
Buckingham advocates ruthlessly cutting out stuff you’re not good at from your life and work. Being intentionally unbalanced, he argues, is more effective than seeking to be well-rounded by trying to bring your weaker areas up to scratch.
What could you sacrifice to make room for something more important?
What are you bad at that you can stop doing?
Please feel free to declare your two “stop doings” on this blog!
One of the few downsides of my coaching practice is not always knowing how things turn out for a client.
People come to coaching when they want to make a major change - and that’s not easy. In an ideal world, we’d continue the coaching until the client successfully made all the changes they wanted. But that’s not always feasible.
So occasionally, the coaching programme ends and despite lots of progress, we still lack a tangible result. It’s not surprising - it took me 8 YEARS from first investigating coaching as a career to actually go for it. As they say, sometimes it takes more than one bite at the cherry.
My coaching sessions with Ann, a creative and very funny Brit living in Istanbul, were a case in point. Ann was fed up with teaching English and looking for a new career. Unfortunately, when her sessions finished at the beginning of this year, she’d had lots of ideas but not yet settled on a way forward.
You can imagine how happy I was therefore when two months later I received Ann’s email below. I hope you find her story of refusal to give in as heartening as I did.
Hello Sarah,
I thought I would get in touch and let you know what happened after the coaching sessions finished.
I think the last time we spoke, I felt like I’d come round in a huge circle and ended up back at square one.
I didn’t do anything for a couple of months as I refused to teach and decided to go back to England for 3 weeks to think things over. While I was there, I just happened to look on Craigslist to see if there were any jobs in Istanbul.
That very day a job had been posted for a copy editor, so taking my courage in both hands, I applied for it on the spot. I didn’t get it - they gave it to someone with more experience (or actual experience rather than none!) but I did get possibly the most encouraging rejection email I’ve ever received.
Amazingly, they contacted me again and asked if I was still interested as the person they’d recruited buckled under the pressure and didn’t like living in Istanbul. So I started as a copy editor for one of the English-language daily newspapers a month ago.
The actual job is great - it’s 6 days a week with a very long Friday and only every 3rd weekend off - but I really enjoy it; the time just flies and I’m learning things all the time. Who’d have thought, eh?
I certainly learnt from you not to give up even when things are not going well and the other valuable lesson was to trust that things will happen when the time is right, because they do.
Thanks Sarah and best wishes,
Ann
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts
- Winston Churchill
I thought some tips on creating a logo would make a nifty follow on from my earlier post, 6 Simple Steps To Naming Your Lifestyle Business.
I do believe that in life you generally get what you pay for and that the ideal course of action therefore would be to brief a professional designer. Preferably one who will integrate logo design with creating your company’s whole visual identity - which encompasses things like typefaces, colour palettes, and page layouts.
However, most of us when starting out with our businesess don’t have much spare cash lying around. The good news is, it’s perfectly possible to create a low (or no) cost logo yourself. Here are some do’s and don’ts:
DO
1. Keep it simple.
Aim for a clean, non-fussy look - something that people will get instantly. A good test for simplicity is whether the logo works when small. Probably the smallest you would ever need your logo to be is the size it would apear on a business card - so mock one up as a test.
2. Keep to one or two colours
If you need any more than two colours to make the image work , it probably means you don’t have a strong design.
3. Make sure it will work in black and white
Even if you think you’ll always stick to colour, others who are using your logo may be restricted to black and white (eg. trade magazines featuring your business).
4. Experiment with low cost do-it-yourself websites like www.logomaker.com or www.logoyes.com
These sites have great software that takes you through a handful of very simple steps to produce a professional looking logo. The main downside is flexibility - you can only use the images and typefaces they have in stock - but there are still a lot to choose from (Logomaker has over 10,000 images). You can get your logo in minutes for as little as USD 49.
DON”T
1. Don’t try to do it yourself if you completely lack a sense of design!
We all have our weaknesses and if a sense of what looks good is not a strength of yours, I’d avoid even the hand-holding DIY sites. A better idea is to approach your local art and design college for a student. They are likely to create your logo for little cost because it helps them to build up their portfolio.
2. Don’t think you always need an image
You don’t need to follow the convention of image plus business name. There are some great examples of logos which are simply the business name in a distinctive font and colour. If it’s a short punchy name this can have a lot of impact.
3. Don’t forget that your logo is only one aspect of your brand
Your logo is only one element of your company’s visual identity, which in itself is only a part of your branding…a big subject for another time. For now, before you settle on a logo just make sure that you are happy with the colours it commits you to. You might like pink and purple for your logo, but are you happy using those colours for subheads, banners, highlighting? Mock up a sample web page (just in Word is fine for these purposes) and see how the colours work in a wider context.
4. Don’t kill yourself getting everyone’s buy-in
Same principle as choosing a business name. Check your logo resonates with your potential market by testing it out on friends and acquantainces who fit that category. But personal taste varies, so don’t try to please everyone. I’d aim for a 60% friend approval rating and of course liking it yourself - you’ve got to live with it!
Have fun with it.
I started Cows From My Window 18 months ago and despite the inevitable rocky patches of any new business, it has been the best 18 months of my life.
Here are 7 reasons why owning a lifestyle business works for me (and could for you):
1. I can choose my work
Whenever I’m approached by a potential client, the first question which goes through my head is “Is working with this person on this type of change something that will really excite me?” If it isn’t, I don’t take the work. What job would give me that freedom?
 2. I have control over my time
OK, having your own business is hard work, but it’s me and not my boss who gets to decide how much I work and when.
I stop at 3pm so I can take my 3 ½ year old daughter to a park, explore Beijing’s hutongs together on my bike, or maybe do some painting. If I haven’t finished what I needed to, I make up for it in the evenings after Elsa is in bed - which might not be everyone’s choice, but it suits me.
3. I decide where I work
I see clients at home or work with them over the phone - which is a joy, because there’s no commute. On my writing days, I can drag on my slobbiest clothes, and work from my laptop at my local café. (I admit there’s a downside… having to limit myself to just one cup of their wall-climbingly strong Italian coffee, and mustering the willpower to stay away from the tiramisu).
4. I’m surrounded by inspiring, creative and courageous people
My clients are a daily reminder of the courage and determination it takes to change your life…and of how much it is worth it in the end. And I’ve made friends with many other business owners - a fun, independent-minded, creative bunch of people firmly in charge of their own destiny.
5. I am always (ALWAYS!) learning
I have a piece of paper pinned to a corkboard beside my desk and barely a day goes by that I don’t scribble another book title down on my wish-list. Psychologists, philosophers, heroes of today and yesteryear, business and marketing gurus - how will I ever live long enough to learn all there is to know?
 6. I have time to smell the roses
Elsa and I spend nearly 3 months of the year (in batches) in the UK with my parents. It’s pretty much free time, for Elsa to bond with her grandparents, and for me to visit friends or just relax in the laid back country village, where a 100 metre amble to the local pub is the height of the social scene. I do fit in some work, (thanks mum and dad for the child-minding)! - but it’s ticking-things-along kind of stuff, nothing too stressful.
7. I’m forced to become a better person!
There’s nothing like owning a business for slamming you brutally up against your weaknesses. Not just technical areas like accounting expertise or strategic thinking. But personal qualities you’re lacking, like - in my case - patience, or the ability to JUST - CHILL - OUT.
Having your own business is like being permanently on drugs (I imagine!). The highs are higher and the lows are lower. But in my view, finding something in life which constantly pushes you past your comfort zone is the best way to honour the one life we are given. In the words of Thomas Mann:
There is at bottom only one problem in the world and this is its name: how does one break through? How does one get into the open? How does one burst the cocoon and become a butterfly?
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