Tag Archives: entrepreneur

How many hats do you wear in your life?

In a world where you hustle from one commitment to the next, keeping all your plates spinning can be a constant challenge.  Usually we look at this from the view of a work and life balance as if they are two separate and distinct compartments.

The tasks competing for your time can be overwhelming, especially if you make endless to-do lists.  But maybe there is an easier way to look at your life and make juggling your many plates a little easier.  Forget viewing everything as equally demanding of your time or a long list you must endlessly prioritize.

Instead, look at the demands on your time from the view of the many different hats you wear. Start to catagorize demands on your time into these different roles rather than separate responsibilities.

What are all the hats you wear and roles you play in an average week or month?

You have the major hats you wear. These might be roles like:

  • Boss
  • Wife
  • Mother
  • Employee

But you probably also put on a number of other hats each day, week or month that you should add to the list.

  • Volunteer
  • Dog walker
  • Counselor for friends
  • Health consultant for family
  • Family maid service
  • Yard maintenance
  • You might even wear different hats with different people; list them.

Make your list as complete as you can, including all the hats you wear–whether chosen or out of duty.  Start to notice how much time each week you invest wearing these different hats. You may find that although one of them is extremely important to you, you don’t put that hat on nearly as often as another you really don’t enjoy wearing.

Then turn to your heart and ask which of these roles are your heart’s priorities. Pick your top three to five hats that you wish to wear, no matter what!

If your time investment is not aligned with the top five roles you desire to play, then it is time for a reset!

From this vantage point of roles you can start to assess if there are hats you wear that someone else could just as easily put on, freeing your time to wear the hats that matter.  It also allows you to lump many seemingly insignificant tasks that take up a lot of time into roles that matter and roles that do not.

Often I have been perplexed when a well-meaning friend has offered to help me by doing something that on the surface seems like it took a great load off my list; however, I resisted.  I now realize when I look at my responsibilities from this new angle that they were taking something that made sense from shortening my list, but was one of the hats I love.

By assessing your competing responsibilities by which hat your wear to do it you will find yourself free to make easier choices that lighten your load AND enliven your life.  When you put hats on that make you smile and inspire you more often then you have more energy for the rest of your work-life.

Balance can be restored by negotiating with others to pitch in on the hats you don’t enjoy, hiring help, or just putting those hats on much less often.  Your confidence will also be boosted as you tend to the things that matter; because we all know when things that matter are well everything else is so much easier.

The final take away is sometimes in order to juggle this work-life balance issue we try to do multiple things at one time. My advice is to drop that tactic, focus on what matters, who matters, and what really counts.

You always look better wearing one hat at a time.

 

What makes a successful entrepreneur?

In a September 3, 2014 Forbes article, Checklist Of Traits Of A Successful Entrepreneur, Jenny Q. Ta points out some really important traits of successful entrepreneurs.

But she misses the key ingredient. ALL successful entrepreneurs have a burning desire to create something very specific. In other words, anyone who achieves noteworthy success always has a definite goal — one they can visualize in great detail. And because they know deeply what the goal is they create plans and take actions to accomplish it, which are driven by a very strong desire to see it through.

With a goal they deeply desire in their heart and mind, they THEN use the traits Jenny speaks of—self confidence, self-motivation, tenacity, honesty about their own limitations, healthy disrespect for rules, and willingness to fail—to go after their goal no matter what others say, no matter if they succeed at first…no matter what!

Many entrepreneurs fail before they get very far because at the first sign of obstacles they lack the burning desire to make their idea happen, no matter what. It is this goal deeply imbedded in their mind in bold color and detail that makes other entrepreneurs succeed against apparently overwhelming odds. I love the story about Fanny Hurst in Napoleon Hill’s book, Think and Grow Rich, where Hill describes Hurst getting 36 rejections from the Saturday Evening Post before getting them to publish her first story. He goes on to state that most writers, or people in most any profession, would have quit at the first “No”. Hill is right, most do. And the secret to becoming successful at whatever you do is having a burning desire to see your goal happen. When you have this burning desire you will learn, do and be whatever it takes.

So I challenge you to find a goal that is truly worthy of your time,  attention and  life. Then you will have the passion it takes to be a self-made Female Millionaire. If you need help finding your passion, or creating a business that creates wealth pursing what you love, I can help you.

Woman in a Man’s World

Can you imagine being the first women in venture capital?  To put this in perspective, today after 30+ years of women in venture capital there are fewer than 4% of senior VC’s who are women! Now imagine, again, how out of place Kathryn Gould must have been in these early years in a man’s world.

Kathryn gave the commencement speech at University of Chicago this year, and if you haven’t read it yet, I highly recommend reading it.  She has been on the investing side and the entrepreneur side, and shares some wonderful advice.  These are some highlights of her speech.  These are really great gems of wisdom for anyone, especially a woman entrepreneur in her first start up.

1. “So, about your adventure:  should you have a plan? Maybe. But don’t follow it. Planning prepares the mind, and chance favors the prepared mind, but chance usually messes up plans!”

2. “Don’t be afraid to take a step down” (Kathryn left as marketing manager for a $100 Million  business to join Oracle, a $1 Million business.)  I agree, if your intuition says it is a good idea, but all the outer world says “no stay at your good job”, chances are it is time to take a leap.  I talk about this often.  When I left IBM to join a small start up that later became what we know as the cellular industry, no one thought I was making a wise choice.  But my intuition said jump!

3.  “Build Your Skills Not Your Resume.”  We live in a work world of resumes, but not once you become an entrepreneur.  When you are starting your own business, you will be doing jobs from janitor to book keeping at times.  Broaden your skills at every chance you can, before and after you take the plunge.

4.  These are some gems she learned along the way:

  • “How to cold call –adrenaline, real time, 3 seconds to grab their attention—learn this!”
  • “Also the adage As hire As, Bs hire Cs—absolutely true—be careful of the company you keep.”
  • “What goes around comes around. Help people with their careers, their ideas, contacts—and I’m serious, good things come back years later.”
  • “I also learned that the first time without a paycheck is a little scary.”

5.  “Find Your Obsession.”  I should put this at the top, the middle and the end.  Without a burning desire for achieving something you will not have the needed fire to fuel your path as an entrepreneur. 

6. “It’s Not the Calls You Take, It’s the Calls You Make.  You are the creator of your destiny. In whatever business you’re in, there is always so much coming at you that you can stay insanely busy just responding.  Don’t do that. Always think about what is your agenda, what do you want to make happen, what do you want the future to look like.  This is not so easy.”  I think this might be the number two reason people fail at start-ups or careers.  (The number one reason is not having a goal they truly are passionate about.) Years ago I moved my family to the country.  Initially there was no cell phone coverage on our land and although we installed a phone line, we worked on one side of our 88 acres and lived on the other.  Our one land-line phone meant we were away from the phone most of the day. When our answering machine broke people became irritated they could not leave us messages–playing the now familiar electronic version of tag, your it. However, I found such freedom in not responding to everyone else’s requests that I stalled considerably getting a new machine.  I recognized in that experience the perpetual vortex of being sucked into other people’s priorities, and the power of stepping out of it.

I leave you with Kathryn’s ending remarks:

“Break rules, find your obsession, be extraordinary!”

Be Your Own Boss

Working for someone else can be easy, comfortable, and safe.  Yet, it often does not let our light shine and our hearts sing.  Do you have an idea in you that you have not allowed to see the light of day?

Awhile back fellow Harvard Business School grad, Jules Pieri, wrote this inspirational blog about empowering ourselves by starting our own business rather than managing a dead end career moving like a tortoise to “the top.”  It was relevant then and still is today.

If you consider starting your own company, but then stay where it is safe…. read it today! Xconomy Blog by Jules Pieri