Do You Really Own Your Business?

You start something with nothing. Just an idea and your eagerness to make something in the world. You call in favors, you energetically tell your friends. Some people are buying in.

Most don't care.

That's ok.

So you keep tinkering around. One time I had a grand plan to pitch companies on a major media tour. A friend introduced me to the CEO of a major food brand. He stuck his neck out for me. I bombed the pitch.

I was in the final round of conversations for taking on investment for a product concept I had. That didn't work, either.

And then finally, a spark hits. You get momentum and it's just enough to create this self-reinforcing structure. One that varies between success and failure; back and forth and back and froth, but is trending somewhere positive.

Because even though you're still making mistakes and having all of these unknown things pop-up that you could have never expected... you're having successes, too.

People are buying, or opting in. And it's growing.

You've built a Rocket.

Where before you had built a Rocking Chair.

And the space between where you are and where you want to go is the fuel.

Your aim is toward the Moon, of course, or maybe Saturn or some outside ring of the galaxy.

And then, after time goes by, maybe a year, or three years or five...

The arc of your progress plateaus, and for the first time, in the background something is bothering you but you can't quite put your finger on it.

It's a question, one that's nagging and invading your mental space, even though it's invisible and can only be seen deep under the microscope.

"Do I really own my company?"

Or

"Am I really the person to run this thing?"

You forgot all of that work, creating a rocket from scratch. And how you found your own way past every mistake and every hiccup.

You question whether or not you have the proper training.

You feel like maybe you "don't have the gene" – and you begin to question...

I see this with business owners I work with as a coach all of the time.

And I've felt the same way, too.

Like I don't REALLY own my company, do I?

Like, sure, it's done this, or that, but... I don't know that's just something that happens and yeah I'm a part of it but OWN IT?

At least it doesn't feel that way.

And here's where the problems start.

If you don't own it... you get scared to make decisions. You get tentative. You don't quite know how to hold and rock the baby like you used to. It's suddenly... AKWARD.

And then you hype yourself up.

And then you communicate poorly, to customers, or to your employees.

I remember almost hiring an intern once, and *I* was the one who was nervous to get on the phone with them.

What?!?

We need your rocket vision.

We need you as the pilot. Your team needs you as the pilot.

But you're sort of sitting in the back of the ship nervous to sit in the cockpit.

I get it. The system that you've built for yourself, the energy you used to build momentum was used up...

Or maybe something happened that broke your spirit.

Or maybe... you don't even know what's happened, you just know that you're Reactive instead of Pro-Active.

The irony here is that we only need to look at the Truth.

I don't even need to lie to sugar coat things for you.

If we look, truthfully, it WAS you that built the company, the project, the blog, the idea.

It WAS you who's grit and intelligence and intuition despite any credentials or "permission" did something that many people who have those things COULDN'T do.

Bravely created a vision from nothing.

Pieced together the project with sticks and tape.

Road the emotional roller coaster's hills from mistake to success to mistake to success.

You're the pilot.

We need you to steer.

We want you at the wheel.

And we are happy that you're leading us to wherever YOU see that we should go.

Because that's what we've signed up for.


As always, let me know if I can help.