Leading Your Own Business

I was out golfing today. I have actually just scheduled it into my week as an activity to break up my work week and I love having it in there. Anyway, a man I was playing with asked me what I do. I told him I work for myself in the performance space. He said how do I find working for myself?

Here was my response.

What do I like about working for myself?

I love the flexibility, the freedom to make fast decisions, the varied projects from working in the corporate world to working with athletes who want to win medals at the Olympics. Building a team around our own values and philosophy and seeing how that impacts people has been extremely fulfilling. The development of ideas and seeing them grow into really impactful services is simply exhilarating.

What is challenging? 

I am a performance nutritionist, a coach and director of performance in my own business, but the identity of a business owner and a person who has to talk about margins, profit, negotiate contracts and lead a team where there is a responsibility to evolve, keep things exciting and of course pay their wages is not always something that rests easy with me.

The ebb and flow of running your own business can be frustrating and draining. Great phases followed by challenging ones.

I think the follow-on question of how I deal with it is an important one.

Dealing with conflict, mistakes and months where you make a significant loss?

Go back to addressing situations as quickly as possible. Being clear on priorities, responding quickly, but with the right information. Being as honest as you can about circumstances where you make a mistake, involving your team where possible in decision making, all help.

On a real personal level though, it’s getting the picture of what I am trying to create really clear in my head and being very strong on self-talk, by asking myself the right questions and coming up with positive answers. I can’t tell you how important that is. Daniel you do this, Daniel you have integrity, you are honest, you are helping people, things are building slowly but for the right reasons, you put impact and value first when making decisions and your intentions are in the right place, you won’t please everyone and remember you are doing this for your family, your team and for all the people you know you can help.

Never letting emotions get too high or too low. If you make a mistake or drop your standards, take it on the chin, have that chat with yourself and get back working hard and doing things right as soon as you can.