However, when I think about where we were, actually I was, a few years back, that place many who are dreaming of having a successful business are now, I realize we’ve past into another level.

For folks in the position we’ve now come out of, overwhelm is a frequent companion. Between marketing, systems, running the business, and then actually providing services, not to even mention having a life outside that, it can get pretty insane.

And then, you look at something like Heart of Business, or any of several successful businesses around and you wonder, “How in the heck can they get it all done?”

Here’s Where Personal Branding Betrays You

Businesses the size of ours tend to still have a very visible front person. If you don’t look carefully, or if they haven’t taken pains to show you what’s going on, it can look like the business is that person.

This can lead to incredible feelings of inadequacy, because you realize that you are barely keeping up with what you’re doing. How in the heck could you ever handle what they are accomplishing? Crazy!

Let Me Pull The Curtain Back

I think we’ve been pretty transparent, but let me pull the curtain back a bit more so you can understand that I’m not doing all of this myself.

People involved in Heart of Business:

1. Me. I do my fair share, and I’m still wearing a number of hats that I’d like to hand off. For instance, I still end up being the IT go-to guy far more often than I’d like. But it’s getting better.

2. Holly, my wife… except now she’s with the twins, so we have to take her off the list temporarily, just for a couple of years.

2. Kate Williams, Director of Projects and Development. Kate is a bona-fide full-time on-the-payroll, health care benefits and all employee of Heart of Business. She works amazingly hard and wears many of the hats Holly and I used to wear, plus some hats that were just lying around unworn that desperately needed a noggin to sit on. She edits, she writes, she connects with customers, she handles details and projects, she collaborates and dreams. Amazing.

3. Jim Brosseau, Head Trainer. Not that he trains our heads, although he does that some, but he’s the first person aside from Holly and I to work directly with Heart of Business individual clients. He also played a pivotal role in the beta “train-the-trainer” program we just ran with a handful of people, as well as helping too in strategy meetings and planning for growth. Plus, he’s started to give public talks. He also makes a mean raw, sprouted cracker.

We’re also in the process of adding one more contractor to provide client services. You’ll be hearing about her soon.

4. Jason Lay, Intern. He’s just starting on his path to become a Chinese medicine practitioner through the National College of Natural Medicine (NCNM), and already he’s wanting to learn about heart-centered businesses. He agreed to intern with us, and for a double-handful of hours a week, we’re giving him all we know. He’s tech and web-savvy and has already handled some critical web-related projects that we… just… couldn’t… get to. We’re humbled that he wants to be here with us.

5. Eric Grey, Intern. Coincidentally enough, he just graduated from NCNM, has started his own clinic, and still wants to learn more about heart-centered business practices. The thing is, he’s a total David Allen, Getting Things Done disciple, and is also a popular blogger in the holistic health field. We’re amazed to have him. He’s handling admin stuff for us, and looking at it from larger systems perspective. Very cool.

6. Adam Kayce, Bright Coconut. We’ve hired him for two projects now doing what he does superbly well–-really solid Wordpress-based web design. Clean, workable, dependable, fantastic. He helped us redesign and launch the current heartofbusiness.com and is currently helping us relaunch The Business Oasis.

7. Trisha Cupra, Professional Website Makeovers. Even thought we’d already found Adam and have been deliriously happy with him, Trisha came into our life to help us with our new html ezine design, which is a whole ‘nother thing from the website. Since then, she’s been supporting us weekly in getting the ezine out, and is starting to work with other design projects we have. She’s really, really good.

8. My Mastermind/Brain Trust group. Molly Gordon, Jen Louden, Michael Bungay Stanier, and Eric Klein function as my board of directors, my own little slap-happy, all-too-happy-to-slap-me compassionate, loving, self-development group. I joined after they were already formed, and they had already named it a “Brain Trust.” But since I have always talked about these kind of groups as mastermind groups, I’ve never been able to entirely shift my vocabulary. We talk as a group at least twice a month, we get together in person once a year, and we’re constantly in communication with each other through a private forum and phone calls. They have totally saved Heart of Business’ butt, and my own, numbers of times.

9. Karen, Michael and Nicole, Balance Your World Bookkeepers. Finding affordable, flexible, accurate bookkeepers has been more challenging than we expected. Especially when we decided we didn’t just want to hand in reports once a month and get reports back that were four weeks in the past. We wanted to know what was happening in the business right now. These folks know small business, are totally efficient and trustworthy, and are helping us stay on top of our numbers day-to-day. You might not need that level of service if you are running your average self-employed service business. But, if you do, here they are.

10. Fabeku Fatumise, Sankofasong. I’ve known we need to take our audio content up a notch, but haven’t known how, until now. Suddenly, I realized, we didn’t need a musician, we needed a sound healer. Enter Fabeku. He’s creating intro/outro music that really supports the deep intention we’re bringing to our content. I can’t imagine this will be the only project we’ll do with him.

11. Steve Alverdes, My Tax Man. Last on the list, but not least, is Steve and the gang at My Tax Man. Small business accountants, they handle our payroll, our taxes, and are available for conversations and consulting during the year when we need to understand how to do things right, or how financial decisions, like hiring an employee, is going to affect us. No, strangely enough, they don’t have a website. Even so, as a third-generation business, they seem to be doing just fine. If you want to find them, here they are.

That’s A Long List of People

Lord forgive me, I hope I haven’t forgotten anyone. To tell you the truth, when the payroll can handle it, we’d love to have some more dedicated admin help. If it’s not too late, let me say: “Please Don’t Freak Out!” Please don’t freak out. If you are currently self-employed and don’t have any help, don’t look at this long list and think, “I can never afford it. I can never get there.”

We didn’t start here. We started with “I.” My first step ever was to hire some office help a few hours a week. Holly helped out, too. Eventually I hired a virtual assistant. We’ve been through several bookkeepers. Of course, I needed an accountant from the get-go.

Anyhoo, it’s been a long journey, filled with mistakes, missteps, and experiments. But over the years it has become crystal clear that in order to be successful, “I” needed to become “we.”

I was team-phobic. I didn’t think I wanted a team. I didn’t know how to handle a team. But, sure enough, to really have the business work, I needed a team.

Start to Build Your Team Now

If you want to succeed in business, start to build your team. Start to gather the people around you who can support you. No, you don’t have to do it like I did. You don’t need someone on a payroll, you don’t need employees.

But you do need a team. Otherwise, you don’t have a business that is going to succeed. You have a gerbil wheel that will eventually roll away.

Any other sage advice? Or questions?

If you’ve built or are building your team, what sage advice do you have? If you are struggling and suddenly realize you need a team, what questions do you have?

Let’s take it to the comments.

I can be at the peak of my attention in a conversation about how to organize a project, or just finished a critical piece and need him to do the next to keep the momentum going, and he just doesn’t have the energy to continue or do his next part . . . could be that days go by.

Hey, Don’t Leave Now!

It’s like turning on a lamp to read, you just get to a juicy part of the story and the light goes out. Then when the light comes back on, you’ve lost your place and the tension buildup is gone and the scene has its pizzazz.

As you might suspect, I’m the kind of person who takes a roll-up-your-sleeves, get-going, hours-go-by-before-realizing-it sort of approach to accomplishing things. I’m a dog with a bone type, in other words.

The Aha! Moment of Identifying Our Differences

Mark and I set up a phone meeting the other day to get some clarity on a new class we want to organize and promote in the next six months. Well, you know how it goes when there are things that just need to be talked about before you talk about what you’ve agreed to talk about. Ha!

We got off on strategic alliances, social media connections, individual vs corporate alliances, how many possible avenues we have to go in, where we should focus. How to reach greater numbers of people . . . there’s so much to do . . . enough tweeting already . . .

One thing led to another, and I commented on how many overwhelming personal events have happened at Heart of Business in the last year, out of our control things that have slowed down our growth progress each time I think we’re getting a toehold. Mark kept pressing me to be clearer, he didn’t know what I was meaning. (Love that, even if it’s difficult sometimes.)

Eventually we hit on it. What was buggin’ me was his general work style. We both realized that Mark’s a zoom in, do a couple of hours of intensely focused work and then buzz off sort of worker. He can only concentrate on something for that long at a time. Whereas I tend to marathon with an acute need to realize completed goals. Give me a reason to check off my to-do list and I’m a happy camper.

The tension wasn’t about Mark being constantly distracted or challenging life events, but rather him having a very different work rhythm than me. Aha!

Collaborate Successfully Using Your Different Work Styles

Of course each of our first impulses was to ask, “Well how can each of us adjust our styles to better work together.”

“Wait, no,” I said, “We don’t want to try to dilute our individual working styles. We need to take advantage of them.”

Realizing in that moment, that neither style was better than the other, that they have both brought each of us success in different ways, allowed immediate appreciation to flow into the conversation.

Suddenly, I didn’t feel critical of Mark’s “constant distraction,” and he could understand why I was feeling frustrated.

We were able to acknowledge that Mark is great at getting things to happen quickly in the short run and that I’m great at developing longer term strategies and accomplishing them. And we need both.

Getting to That Aha! Moment

You may be working solo or with employees in your business. Either way, remember to look beyond your immediate work environment for places where you are in collaborative work relationships. Even if you’re working alone right now, you are always working with your clients, customers, patients. And all of you have different working styles.

• Get conscious of your own work style. You don’t do your business in a vacuum. How you operate impacts those around you. You need to understand yourself here if you’re going to successfully work with other’ styles.

• Before judging another’s work style as problematic, learn how and why they’re working for that person. When I identified Mark’s high and low energy behaviors as a natural work cycle for him, I was able to open my mind to solutions rather than simply being frustrated. I was also then able to be more accepting of my work style, appreciating how much I love getting lost in time while doing creative projects.

• Talk about your work styles with your business partner, client, or employee. Mark and I have been dancing around this issue for months without identifying it. It was much easier to blame the inconsistencies on outside events. Take the time to acknowledge your styles, what works for each of you and what doesn’t.

• Capitalize on your differences. Don’t dilute your differences by trying to compromise too much, or by trying to be someone you’re not. Consider how you can each accommodate for your differences. Mark’s energy bursts, his constantly moving attentions make him a great social media maven. 

He can be tweeting one moment and writing a promotional email in the next. Yeah!, ‘cuz I suck at being in several places at once. I can be the one to trudge through larger projects that take more time, concentration, and consistent attention.

We all have different work styles. Let’s celebrate that and stop wasting time and energy wanting someone to be different. There is so much to gain by identifying our different work flows and methods. If we honor the ways different styles can be used, suddenly our efforts multiply in efficiency. What one person is not good at another can do well because they work differently.

Success! We’re now poised for our next stage of growth. Yes, even in this economy.

To do that we also need even more help. And we want to help you in the process.

Do You Live Around Portland?

If you live in the Portland area and want to gain experience, mentoring, products, classes, and training in trade for helping us with a variety of tasks and projects for a handful of hours each week, then come on down!

We’re looking for two interns, minimum six-month commitment, to start in May.

Click for full information, and to apply.

Read through it, follow the directions, get your application in. We’re happy to answer any questions once you’ve read the page and filled out an application.

And yes, please feel free to forward and repost this announcement anywhere you’d like.

I stayed in my own room in a separate building from Mark and Holly.

Not once did we take time to debrief between sessions or days. I had little sense of how the five days would unfold. I just ran from one moment to the next hoping my related past experience and a handful of Heart of Business know-how would get me through.

I knew that I needed to make sure everyone was comfortable, that communication stayed clear between us and Still Meadow Community staff, that the microphone made it to each participant before they began speaking during sessions, and that I was to learn as a participant at the same time.

I was exhausted emotionally, physically, and psychically from the outset. I did the best I could as I tried to know the way before having made the journey.

The Second Time Around

With last month’s Sacred Moment Seminar, I was able to draw on my past experience. I felt on top of the planning. There was no crash-course, and I didn’t have to adjust to a new environment.

Mark, Jim, & I stayed in the same house. We spent each evening talking about how the day went, and Heart of Business in general. We laughed, ate, and cried together.

During the days, I was responsible for as many and more elements of the seminar as last time, but this time I was relaxed, confident, more present, and self-caring. When it was time to go, I was tired and ready, but this time I left feeling full. I didn’t have to go home to recuperate.

Listening to the Labyrinth

On the way back to my room after our last dinner of the Sacred Moment Seminar, Diane asked me if I’d like to go for a walk with her.

“Yes,” I said without hesitation. I was tired, but welcomed the chance to be outside surrounded by Oregon woods spending time with someone I hadn’t seen since last October’s retreat.

“Would you like to walk the labyrinth with me as well,” she asked.

The labyrinth? I’d stayed at Still Meadow twice now and hadn’t heard a peep about a labyrinth.

“I’ve always wanted to walk one,” I admitted.

As we took off, Friday’s dense cloud cover began breaking up behind us. With little effort, we arrived at the grass field where the inconspicuous labyrinth had been mowed into life.

In agreed upon silence, Diane and I walked single file toward the entry. The circle looked small as I approached. At the path’s inner end point, the circle’s center, there was a modest altar of odd baubles signifying many personal meanings. Paradoxically, it was only about four feet from the entry. A few direct, off-path steps and there you’d be.

Of course that would defeat the purpose . . .

Following the path, I walked around, winding in, out, back a bit, forward again, and around. The sky’s clouds were now blown into dramatic pieces, reflecting pink and orange shards of evening sunlight. A great horned owl’s haunting hoots rose up from the northern outline of Douglas firs.

The Rewards in Honoring the Process

The labyrinth path was many, many times longer then the distance from the entrance to the center. The time it took to reach the center brought depth and meaning to my arrival. I was present for it in a way I couldn’t have been if I’d denied the process and stepped in directly.

Before falling to sleep that night, it struck me how different I felt during and after the Sacred Moment Seminar than I did during and after the Path to Profitability Retreat. It’s hard to relax into a sense of place and responsibility, to be at your best, until you’ve gained some ground, taken the time to get there.

You can’t be there or expect someone else to be where you want them before the getting there happens.

Including Time in the Equation

Time can be one of our most important training tools. Even with the most detailed instructions, plans, and earnest effort, the element of time is required to accumulate knowledge, experience, efficiency, and familiarity.

Shortly after coming home from the Sacred Moment Seminar, I came across these words of Sufi master, Hazrat Inayat Khan:

“Man appears to be most independent of the influences and yet man is most under the influence of time; not only his body and mind, but with all affairs of life. Verily the one who knows the influence of time knows the secret of life.”

There you go, take it from a master.

Making the Most of the Time Tool

Yes, time–practice, experience, integration–on its own is an unavoidable ingredient to successfully accomplishing new endeavors, projects, or tasks. And there are ways to include it gracefully:

• Check your expectations.

I went into the Path to Profitability Retreat expecting myself to read minds, pick up loose ends out of context, and absorb the teaching like a focused participant. I left no room for the extra energy required in new situations. I could have asked for help, requested time with Mark and Holly to talk about expectations. I could have built in more time to re-juice. I could have worried less about being perfect. Mark and Holly could have given more thought to my needs as a new employee in a demanding, new situation.

• Define goals, expectations, and roles ahead of time.

The more time you spend considering how to best train an employee, the less strain they will experience while in the learning process. If there’d been time, it would have been great for Mark and Holly to have provided me more guidance about my role at Still Meadow before arriving. When your employee is competent and self motivated, it can be easy to forget that they’re learning what you may now be taking for granted. Allowing for the space and time to walk the labyrinth, rather than expecting yourself or another to arrive in a couple shortcut steps makes a difference in quality and outcome.

• Put yourself in your employee’s shoes.

As you are guiding them in their training process, remember the first time you took on a similar project, task, or event. Take a further step even and consider how they might best learn, notice if they integrate information differently then you and make adjustments. Making time to check in and debrief during the fall retreat would have helped me stay realistic about my learning process and capacity for competence.

• Consciously build in time for learning.

I certainly didn’t have realistic expectations during the fall retreat. I leapt across the labyrinth wanting to take care of everything like a pro. I wanted to relieve Mark and Holly of any extra burden, even though I didn’t really know what I was doing. I’m a quick study, but there’s a price for pushing that hard. If Mark had built in time for my learning curve, I still would have needed to learn by doing–taking the time, but it may have been much less stressful.

Make sure you account for the journey time needed when introducing or taking on something new. It will be much easier to evaluate how well you’ve learned after the second or third time through.

Be patient with your employees; be patient with yourself. Give yourself, and those who work with you, a reasonable amount of ins, outs, backwards, and forwards to reach the desired destination.

Coming to the Interview

It’s the middle of July and I ride up on my People 125 scooter in a sleeveless, long summer dress to interview for a part-time job at Heart of Business. I’ve been reading Mark’s articles for a year, I’ve read Unveiling the Heart of Your Business, and I’ve listened to him talk twice as a business owner myself. What a surprise to be guided to this unlikely moment.

I pull my helmet off and glance into a side view mirror hoping my hair isn’t irreparably smashed. Then I take out my upper and lower retainers–doing the teenage teeth straightening and TMJ repair thing at 47–because I just can’t bear to be speech impaired for their first impression.

I’m nervous walking up the 500 steps to their front door. Mark opens the door before I get there. Don’t trip on your dress, I think and smile. Making it inside in one piece, I knew I was on familiar ground.

The Interview

Holly’s in the kitchen asking if I want something to drink as Mark escorts me into a light, comfortable room with chairs and a big couch. I go for the couch; I don’t know why. As soon as I sit, it wants to pull me into a lean-back slouch with my legs crossed up under me. I fight the natural inclination and perch on the edge, keeping my feet firmly on the ground as Mark starts talking. He lets me know right away that he doesn’t really know what he’s doing, that he has a lot to learn about doing employees.

I’m impressed by his vulnerable honesty and flash on my first graduate program advisor, a published author I admired, who said on our first visit, “Well, I’ve never done this before. We’re going to have to figure this out together.” When I heard that from her, the oldest child in me was deeply disappointed, never managing to manifest that mentor-older sibling relationship. But hearing it from Mark felt like an opening. I knew I could help and that he could receive it. I also suspected that he could be that mentor for me at the same time.

Can You Handle Us? Can We Live with You?

“Holly and I have big personalities. Sometimes we can get into it. How do you handle big emotions?” . . .

Mark hands me a test. “Do you know about the Enneagram?” I say yes, a bit surprised but intrigued. I’m thinking, this is a great twist on the what’s your sign question. I’m wondering what the lucky number is already knowing that I’m a nine–the peacemaker–with a one wing and a one-to-one subtype. I get Mark to tell me that he’s a one–the perfectionist. Oh good, I think, here’s a guy who cares about quality and will not hesitate to let me know what he thinks is right. Oh god, I think, here’s a guy who will challenge my self-esteem regularly. And then there’s Holly who I find out is a four–more on that in future posts . . .

Mark comes back in. He finishes going through his scripted questions. He’s cautious. He so doesn’t want to make another hiring mistake. I go through mine, and I so want to make sure that I’m not there just because I’m afraid my business won’t support me.

An hour passes, and I find out that now it’s Holly’s turn. I take a deep breath. All this for a part-time admin assistant position. Yet it feels exciting because these people are as sincere and genuine about communication as I am. I think they’re over the top, and I like it.

Nearly two hours later . . . “Good to connect,” hugs, “We’ll call you . . .” They did . . .

If You Are New to Hiring Employees, Say So

Anybody worth your attention will know right away whether you know what you’re doing as an employer. Why not let them know up front. Find someone who is able and willing to be your guinea pig, someone who may even have experience managing employees themselves.

When you are at the point where you need to hire help, you don’t want to add the extra burden of having to be an all-knowing employer who takes on an employee who expects to simply follow his or her commands. And your employee doesn’t want to find out soon after they’re hired that the security they sought as an employee is paper thin.

Don’t be afraid to reveal some of your weak areas. The kind of employee you want to help you move from a single person to a multiple person business will want to support you at your learning edges. They will also want to be supported at theirs.

If you choose this level of transparency, find ways to acknowledge and reward your employee for the in between role they’re playing. It is your business, you make the decisions, but remember that that employee is willing to act as your peer and guide as you continue learning what it means to be an employer and grow your business beyond your own power and creative input.

It was an expensive, painful, enlightening, and incredibly educational journey. My wife and I learned tons about ourselves, about the true needs of the business, about how to hire, and how to be employers. Mostly because the first two hires didn’t work out. Which was expensive and painful. But worth it.

Now we have Kate Williams. Kate is our Infrastructure Queen. She has been an entrepreneur for-evah! She was the co-owner and manager of a holistic medical clinic, she was hired entry level at the National College of Natural Medicine and quickly rose to a director’s position, turning the school bookstore around and quadrupling it. Then she went out on her own as a freelance writer and editor.

Which is where she found us. She was a client of ours for months, before she responded to our ad.

We hired her, and she’s been working diligently within HoB, helping us tune up, and put in place, all kinds of systems and support so that we can sustain growth and development beyond the natural limits that Holly and I had reached in terms of our ability to just get things done.

Here’s the Insider’s View

Kate is adding her voice to this blog, and she’s going to blog about her experience coming into a business that already has momentum and a foundation, as compared to trying to get her own business up and running. She’s going to talk about what works, what doesn’t, insights and lessons learned.

And, she’s probably going to embarrass the crumb out of me, because she’s going to say pretty much whatever she wants. And there are wonderful things about HoB, and there are things that are messy and don’t work according to plan behind the curtain here.

In these times, rough economy, business in turmoil, I think it’s important for you to know the truth- that business is messy, mistakes are made, and that just because I, you, or anyone has accomplished something, it doesn’t mean I, you or anyone has all the answers.

But Kate just might. So watch for her posts.

Posts In This Series

Impressions: Finding That Right First Employee

Getting Paid . . . Eventually . . . After Having to Ask

Good Employees are Independent, and Good Employers Show Up

Wrestling to Anchor Our Infrastructure

Operating By the Books; It Does a Business Good

Don’t Forget to Tend to Your Personal Infrastructure

Remember to Include Time Into the Equation

Taking Advantage of Different Work Styles

It’s humbling to realize, but as you age, you just don’t have the same ability to go all night, and to push through deadlines and projects as you did once upon a time. Heck, I’m only just over the edge into my forties, and I definitely tend to prefer naps over late nights.

How about when you’re fifty or sixty and trying to get a business going?

A Lifetime of Helping Is In the Way

You need help. Period. I know you know that, please don’t look at me like I’m a nut. But here’s the kicker: since you need help, you need to ask for help. And you need to accept help.

Just reading those words, how does your belly feel?

If you tighten up, feel nauseous, scared, angry, spacey, or suddenly decide it’s a good time to go clean the bathroom, I have good news–you’ve found a doorway to freedom.

Yes, it’s true, it doesn’t feel like good news. But it is. Because you’ve just identified the next step that’s needed to make your business work.

I’m guessing you’ve been the helper, the provider, the one who wipes noses and cleans up messes. You’ve been the one who makes it happen, and you’ve rarely been on the receiving end of much help at all.

But it may be dawning on you, if it hasn’t already–there is no other way your business is going to actually work. Help! Help! Help! You need it.

The Quickest End-Run Around Help Avoidance

Here’s the truth: the heart would rather be in service. I want to validate your resistance to help, because it is an uncomfortable place to be. In the tradition of Sufism, Mohammad was given the choice between being a King, who rules over others from on high, or a Divine Servant, who, deeply concerned, helps and serves people. Believing that is was the more worthy choice for a human being, he chose to be a servant.

When you resist receiving help, in many ways your heart is just wanting to make the same choice. Unfortunately, avoiding help doesn’t truly support your profound desire to be of service in a larger way, it undermines it. Plus, you end up exhausted and broke. Not a good combo.

Of course, you could do all kinds of process and healing work, which I recommend in the long run, to clear patterns around receiving help. But for right now, how about digesting this: If you don’t accept help from others, you are denying them the possibility of being in service.

The people who are your raving fans, or friends and loved ones, are also wanting to make the heart choice of being a servant. If you don’t ask for and receive help from them to further the goal of your business, then you are the only one offering the help. To take it further, if you are the only one serving, you are forcing them into the unhealthy king role, where they don’t get to offer service themselves.

Here’s an example:

A client told me he didn’t want to receive a gift from his son, because he couldn’t help thinking of him standing on his feet all day working at a minimum wage job to pay for the gift. I asked the client to go into his heart and ask to be shown a larger truth.

When he did, what he saw shook him to his core. He saw in his heart that by allowing his son to work to give him a gift, his son was stepping into adulthood, that it was an important piece of growing up into responsibility.

Is it possible that the people around you who love you the most are waiting for you to receive their help so that they can grow? Humbling, isn’t it?

Don’t think for a minute that I haven’t struggled with this one, big time. This is a huge part of what the last two years have been about for me–learning to ask for and receive help.

For instance, the other day Kate, the newest member of Heart of Business, helped me see exactly how I was shutting her out and keeping her from contributing the extraordinary talents she has. My fear and controlling impulses were giving her the unintended message that I didn’t welcome her help and talents.

Oops! Luckily, she was courageous enough to challenge me on it, and I was worn down enough to be willing to let more help in. The result? She’s excited about all the work she’s doing for the business, and we’re getting a tremendous amount of help.

Let’s get you going on it. The entire healing journey may take awhile (or not), but that’s all the more reason to get started today. Right now.

Keys To Getting the Help You Need

• Take It Off Your Shoulders

Your business is on a track to make change. It might be change within your local community, or it might be global. Whatever your scale, take a moment and own that change your business is wanting to make.

Ask yourself honestly, do you believe there are other people who would want to support that change? What does your heart say?

• See Their Faces

Take a second moment to picture a few people who have been impacted by what you’re doing. They may be colleagues, or past or current clients, or friends.

What help have they offered that you’ve turned away saying, “Naw, that’s okay, I’ve got it.” A compliment you’ve brushed off? Help with something technological? Even just an offer of brainstorm or support time?

In your heart, bow to those who have offered gifts to you. Bow to them. And say, “Yes” to what they have offered.

• Don’t Go Too Far Down the Road

You’re probably feeling a little tender at this point, and so the best way to put yourself into complete overwhelm is to try to figure it all out.

Yes, you may have to eventually hire some help. Yes, it’s unclear who will help you with such-and-so. Please, be gentle with yourself first, catch your breath, and practice letting in what help is there. As you get used to receiving gifts, compliments and other offered help, you’ll be able to take the next step toward requests, which will be about asking for the help you need.

But hold your horses. You may not quite be there yet. First, let in the help. If you’re truly going to be in service to the world, you’re going to have to let others join you in the effort, and that means letting in the help. If we’re all in service together, I think you’ll notice your business moving further along and more quickly than if it were strictly a solo affair.

If you need proof, here’s the US census data.

Some of the numbers:

• In 2006, there 20.7 million nonemployer businesses.
• They brought in $970 Billion in revenues in that same year.

Get it. Your little business is a major part of the economy. Because major corporations have such large coffers, they buy advertising (which is becoming about as effective as nasal spray for a goldfish) and that’s what we see. But that’s such a small slice of the truth.

I’ve heard that the number of “nonemployer” micro-businesses is expected to grow substantially over the next decade, for a variety of reasons. Although it’s sometimes hard to feel significant when you think you’re a lone voice in the wilderness- just remember there are another 20+ million voices standing with you.

The way you and I and our 20 million colleagues choose to do business has a major effect on how our culture and economy works.

What do you think? Do the numbers surprise you? Do you feel more hopeful?

I want to riff off of the post I put up the end of April, How Productivity Contributes to Global Warming and Debt. The issue, as I was talking about then, was capacity. And yet, there’s an awful lot of things to get done in business.

This week’s article addresses the myth that I also touch upon on my website proper: The Most Dangerous Myth. Many people, when they go solo in business, think that’s it: “I’m solo in business.” Amelia Earhart flew solo, too. She may have accomplished a lot, but I don’t want you ending up where she did.

Take a gander at the article: The Myth of Being Successfully Solo in Business.

This myth is dangerous, is powerful, is alluring, and it will kill you and your business, quicker than almost anything else will. It’s a hard one to shake, I know because I was caught in it for years longer than I needed to be, so let’s talk about it.

What’s your heart telling you? Are you flying solo too much for your own good? What do you need to break your solo-ness?

I think things are going swimmingly. And not only because it’s great to have a new team member who is enthusiastic and skilled, but mostly because of what’s it’s calling out in me.

Three wheels of speed.

I call them the ‘three wheels of speed’ because even as I learn just a little bit about them, they are moving us rapidly forward. Nice.

Here are the three wheels that I can see developing in myself (from a painfully apparent dearth):

• Clarity in requests.

I’m learning that I need to be ultra-clear in my requests, and in my expectations- of myself and others. I’ve learned plenty about vision and service in leadership- but just the ability to be able to identify and then speak clear requests- how amazingly powerful!

Can you make clear requests? And by clear, I mean that when you make a request of someone, and they agree to do it, and follow-through, that you get back exactly what you thought you were going to get back…

I’ve had a miserable track record with that one- but these last two weeks has seen that get better and better.

• Clarity in structure.

I’ve always been a big structure-hound- I like it, and it likes me. And yet, many of the structures I’ve depended on- be it a schedule, or a technology, are incomplete because I get it ‘good enough’ and then take off like a jackrabbit.

We’re seeing that we need to complete structures- as in meetings. When meetings get left in the middle, for instance, without reviewing agreements (see “requests” above ) and deadlines and expectations, then the best meeting in the world can get flushed down the terlit.

• Clarity in faults.

We all have faults. I guess you could use Politcally Correct language and say something like “areas of growth” but I don’t have a problem with using the word ‘faults.’ Gaps, places where I’m ineffective, or they just don’t match my personality type, so I have to compensate like heck to get at them.

Like big-picture stuff. I’m a small and medium-picture guy, Into details, short-term strategic planning. I do like vision and context, but I don’t often remember to bring them in, unless I’m reminded. Which can leave people struggling to follow me, in collaboration situations.

I’m loving learning all this stuff, although it’s a bit uncomfortable to feel so experienced and comfortable with one thing, and like such a newbie in another area.

What have you learned lately about teams and collabation lately, as a solo, micro-business, or personal-business owner? Any nuggets?