Owning a small business is like wrestling with a beast every single day.
It’s a beast that plays with your life savings, and toys with your retirement, daring you to jump into the abyss of failure when things get tough and you must get going.
The Beast forces you to stare the balancing act of managing employees and wanting to give them the world despite what the numbers and bottom line say. It strangles you into making hard decisions and forces you to listen and be smart.
It’s waking up every day ready to fight vendors and beg each receivable for prompt payment to keep the cash flowing.
The Beast goads you into looking at growing or decreasing margins when you would rather look at growing blooms in the flower gardens, trying to increase their size without letting them topple over completely before catching them.
It’s sleeping with one eye open every night, ready to convince, close a sale, and defend the product to keep the Beast from catching up to you. Every day. Someone. Somewhere.
The Beast pushes you to work all the time. Even on vacation. It’s constantly nagging you about the business and everything it needs. Where it wants to go versus where you want it to go as you hang on for dear life, dragging behind as it tries to run away with you, leading you to think it has the upper hand.
But it hasn’t, and it won’t. You fight back harder.
Battling to keep your own schedule and control of your own destiny, you are forced to stay ahead of the curve, stay up to date, forecast the future, and grow… or not.
Hemming and hawing, hashing and thinking. Deciding and doing it.
Problem-solving, denying, and conquering (sometimes) what feels like the steepest climb.
Holding everyone up, even yourself.
Giving and taking…praying.
Having faith in the process, having faith in you.
Yet nothing is more exhilarating than a win. It may last only an hour, a day, or a week, but it supports conquering a lifetime of blood, sweat, and tears.
And when that happens, the very next day, the fearless leader swings their legs over the bed and gets ready to march into battle again…and work for the win to survive another day!
It’s for the love of the “sport” of taming the Beast that keeps you coming back for more.
To all those who own their own business: I understand you.
Battling “the Beast” is not for the faint of heart, it’s actually for those with big hearts, expansive minds, and who at any given moment are ready to jump off of a cliff and engage their parachute.
Because they believe in the fight… every day.
Here’s to a great week! Now slay your Beast!
With love,
Kate
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