Running a Business Is Like Starting a Garden (with 0 experience)
Plop, circa 2016, farming away
notice my great posture and appropriate clothing choices
Running a business is like starting a garden… with zero experience.
Thinking you’re going to be in an organic linen dress elegantly harvesting tomatoes into your $300 wooden basket, whilst a wild deer (who is also a professional photographer!) just happens to be hidden behind a tree, capturing it all for your IG stories.
Thank you, wild photographer deer.
But instead, running a business is like the realization that the upfront investment to grow food is 10x what food costs you a month, recognizing that even though you ~love~ nature, you know almost nothing about how she actually works, and there’s no freaking way you’re wearing a linen dress because after a days work you’re covered in dirt, poop, sweat, and blood from the 3 different times you cut yourself and/or clearly got attacked by a family of spiders who had been diligently training for the day they would have to face off with your unshaven ankle.
I’m going to guess you’ve experienced at least one (all?) of the following
Looking around at what other peeps (whose businesses you like!) are doing and thinking, ‘I should probably be doing that' 🤔 Cut to you, scrapping whatever was on your plate for the week to excitedly begin the thing they’re doing. Only to at some point realize, this probably isn’t the best use of your time and/or you have completely backslid or jumped the gun (you mean your IG grid doesn't need to be perfect? you mean you don't need 5 ring lights? you mean you don't need to cross-post to 5 social media accounts?)
Focusing hard on the select parts of your business you love only to run into swampy stagnancy or raging fires in every other area of your business. Eventually finding yourself having transformed into Sponegbob with 6 arms—resenting all the work you have to do to keep things afloat and wishing you could just move to the coast and get paid to write melancholic poetry with an ink quill and feather.
Realizing that your business thus far has been one big corn maze of emulating others, intaking too much of the wrong kind of information, or following the next shiny thing, and finally sitting back and asking God—What should I even be focusing on right now?? Where do I put my time, energy, and effort to move the needle? AM I EVEN SUPPOSED TO BE DOING THIS?!
Knowing the phase of business you’re in will resolve most of your problems.
Even better, it will expose the problems that are actually worth solving, right now.
Just starting out, re-starting, or coming back after a long break?
Why you're in the seedling phase, my friend!
Seedlings have a very specific protocol to ensure they successfully transition from the greenhouse to the ground. You’re both highly fragile if placed in the wrong environment, yet also learning to become wildly resilient.
Your focus in this phase is most often not what everyone on lé internet is screaming at you that you should be doing, and instead a simultaneous protective and daring time of putting yourself out there in the right ways.
Starting to experience growth and momentum?
It’s stretching towards the sun time!
While you might long for the tender seedling time or wish you had enough squash to feed you and your family, this phase is all about ruthlessly experimenting, foolishly trying, and making big, seemingly paradoxical messes!
Little do you know, you’re building a nonsensical mosaic that will one day make perfect sense.
Is your business experiencing consistent, sustained profits—and a palpable sense of structure and longevity?
Why, you’re bearing fruit!
It’s time to clarify, automate, organize, and perhaps even sustainably scale, steadily aiming towards the promised land of the food forest. Something that knows how to both run and produce food, with less of your involvement.
Yes, it’s possible to have a rich life not just in but also outside of your work, and this phase is about figuring that out.
When you know the season your business is in, you can appropriately assess both what it’s asking for and what you can give. From here, you can take care of it in a way that doesn’t destroy you, nor the business!
We’ve created something fundamental, fantastic, and totally free is to support you in both recognizing the season of business you’re in and learning the key areas of focus that will not just move the needle, but also help you build a business that weathers the world's storms with skill and grace.
It’s giving, recession-proof, but not in the fear-mongering-kinda-way 🙃
Welcome to Steadfast in the Storm: an email course for entrepreneurs playing the infinite game
→ receive access here
All sounds good?
Off you go to the garden! Don’t forget to shave your ankles so the spiders have a direct path to your bloodstream!