A New Ambition

You’ve built your business by figuring things out as you go.

When something goes wrong, you deal with it and when you need to make something happen, you find a way. When things don’t go according to plan, you work harder, change course and somehow manage to land on your feet.

And you have years of evidence that this works.

So you keep going.

But financially, things might not feel quite as good as your growing sales suggest....

Somewhere along the way you started using your goals and your results as a way to measure success or failure. Goal setting and goal achievement became a weapon you used against yourself, instead of a tool that you used to operate your business. 

This became a problem because when you hit your goals you felt successful and when you didn’t it felt like you were failing. It hung over you, it affected how you showed up in you...

You remember what it took to get this business off the ground. The early mornings, the late nights, saying yes before you knew how you'd pull it off and then figuring it out anyway. Nobody handed you a team or a budget. You just gave it everything you had, because there was too much riding on it not to.

So now, when someone suggests you slow down, delegate more, stop answering every message the second it comes in, this feels scary. ...

You're having a pretty good morning, getting through your priorities, and something unexpected happens to set you off. Maybe you get a call from an upset customer or an important delivery gets messed up and you see red, and you let the entire team know how you feel about it. Maybe it’s someone on your team who keeps making the same mistake and before you know it you’re snapping at them or barking the instructions out.&n...

You know exactly who this episode is talking about. The employee who needs to talk everything through. Who brings their mood into every interaction. Who always has a situation that needs an exception.

And it’s frustrating you. You feel resentful about the time it takes and disappointed that it never really seems to change things — no matter how much of your time you give it. 

You don’t love this part about bein...

You have a cluttered garage or storage room or a spare bedroom that's been full for a lot longer than you'd like to admit. You think about clearing it out and you know that you should because it would feel so much better. But you don’t have the time or the patience or the motivation to do it right now. 

Sound familiar?

There's a reason it's still there. And there's a reason your calendar looks the same way. And you...

You know that feeling when you've planned your day carefully so everything has a place on the schedule, there’s more than enough time to get it all done, and yet you still can't seem to get through it? By early afternoon things completely ground to a halt. You feel foggy and slow, and you find yourself staring at your work instead of doing it. 

And you can't figure it out either, because it all made sense on paper...

You've tried the earlier mornings, the better systems, the tighter schedules, and it always works for a while. Then slowly, without quite knowing how, the overwhelm starts to creep back in. The week fills up again, you're behind again, and you're starting to wonder if the problem is you, because you're doing everything right and it's still not working.

It's not you. But it's probably not your time management either.

In this episode I...

Most business owners don't think about their capacity as something they can actually decide on. The demands show up and they absorb them. That's just what running a business feels like. That's just what it takes.

And that might be exactly why you end the week feeling behind, worn down, and like you never quite caught up — no matter how hard you worked or how much you got done.

In this episode I want to introduce you to somethin...

You know that decision that's been sitting on your list for days, maybe weeks? You've thought about it, talked about it, and gone back and forth on it more times than you can count. And somehow you still haven't moved on it.

It's not that you don't care, or that you can't make decisions. It's that this one feels like too much is riding on it. What if you get it wrong? What if it costs you time or money or creates more problems than ...

Some days you sit down with a list as long as your arm and by the end of the day, half of it is still there, plus a new pile of things you didn’t see coming.

Underneath all of that is the pressure that if you choose the wrong thing, you’re going to feel even more behind tomorrow.

A lot of business owners assume this is a time-management problem. But it’s mostly a clarity problem, because when everything feels urgent...

Your business starts to change once you hire people, but not in the way you expected. You thought it would give you more time and take some pressure off. Instead, you’re still very involved, things feel slower or harder to move forward, and you’re often unsure what to say or how to handle situations with your team.

This episode is about what’s actually making this stage feel so difficult. It’s not just about ...

In this episode, part two of a two part conversation I had with Nicole Keleher on her podcast, The Seasonal Operator, we continue our discussion about what it really looks like to become the leader your small business needs.

In this second half of our conversation, we move into the practical side of leading a team once the business has grown.

We talk about how to know when someone needs more coaching and when it may simply not be the...

In this episode, part one of a two part conversation I had with Nicole Keleher on her podcast, The Seasonal Operator, we talk about what it really looks like to become the leader your small business needs.

Nicole works with Christmas businesses and seasonal retailers on marketing strategy, planning, and execution.

For almost twenty years, she ran her own retail business with a team of up to twenty staff. So when we talk about leaders...

You know what it’s like when things don’t go as planned or something unexpected happens and it throws you for a loop.

It could be someone quitting or dropping the ball, a sale or a new product that doesn’t perform the way you hoped, or an argument or a hurtful comment that someone throws your way.

And without really thinking the problem through, you react:

You change up the sale.
You rewrite all your produ...

You reorganize your list. You rework your calendar. You move things around and tell yourself that once it all fits together a little better, you'll feel better too. Less behind. Less rushed. Like you finally have a handle on things.

And sometimes it does feel better, for a little while. But then a few days go by, and you're right back in the same place. Still feeling behind. Still feeling like there's too much on your plate and not ...

Most business owners think their problems and the solutions live outside of them.

In their team. In their workload. In the economy.
In the way things keep going wrong or taking longer than they should.

So when something isn’t working, the instinct is to look outside yourself: at your strategy, your structure, other people, or your environment.

And that makes sense. Those are the things you can see, measure, and try to change.

...

Why can’t you say no to that conversation, interruption, taking on work that someone else should be doing, adding more projects this quarter?

Why does it feel like it’s the hardest thing to do when your plate is already overflowing and why does it seem to happen despite your good intentions?

You've tried setting boundaries, being more disciplined about your time, rehearsing what you’ll say the next t...

You told yourself you wouldn't check email first thing in the morning.
But there you are, scrolling through your inbox before you've even had coffee.

You decided not to work past 6pm this week.
But it's 8:30 and you're still at your desk, trying to finish just one more thing.

You promised yourself you'd focus on your priorities without interruptions.
But every time you sit down to work, you're checking m...