In every entrepreneur’s career, there are times that things are as exciting and exhilarating as your favorite thrill ride. Then there are times when it is as boring and frustrating as waiting in a three hour line to find out the ride is shut down just as you are about to enter and get your adrenaline fix.
There are even times you may struggle with whether or not you should wiggle your way out of line and go back to the safety of watching from the sidelines. Sometimes you might get nervous because the ride you are about to take, may be too much for you or it will be overwhelming and out of control.
It is inevitable. No matter how organized, structured or put together you are, there is going to be a time of stress. A time where you look at your business and it is moving so quickly that you are doing double time. Somewhere deep inside you know you can’t keep up this pace forever.
I liken this to a theme park.
At first, the Entrepreneurial Theme Park may be exhilarating. “I THRIVE under pressure.” Might be your motto and you proudly wear it like a badge of honor across your chest. You feel like you are on top of the world accomplishing things with your mighty check mark as you slash them off your To Do List. This is your favorite ride! It feels amazing! It brings you the thrills and adrenaline you seek in the perfect proportion and it is actually a source of energy!
Then of course, there will be times when you feel a little tired. The constant state of adrenaline that has been coursing through your veins now sometimes gives way to adrenal fatigue. There are still times of exhilaration, like when you meet a challenge, earn another trip, receive another bonus or achieve another goal. You recognize you are good at what you do but there are times of discouragement and frustration that feel more like stress now than excitement. Like a roller coaster, you are finding it harder to climb up the steep tracks to get to the top! The elation is lasting less time and instead the FEAR kicks in as you go plummeting down to the bottom of the next part of the ride.
FEAR controls you for a while and limits your potential by putting you on the Merry-Go-Round where you feel like you are moving in the right direction. This feels more stable than the up and downs of the Roller Coaster. Forward movement, some up and down activity, but more manageable. You settle in to this role and realize that you are bored out of your mind. You aren’t really going anywhere. You are stuck without goals, objectives or the energy to achieve them. You aren’t getting anywhere. Your business isn’t growing, your team is stuck and you need some adrenaline to motivate you again so you decide to jump on to a new ride to get back on track.
You grab a hold of your confidence and storm the next ride with a determination to take this momentum all the way. It starts out slowly, but quickly gains momentum and you focus your eyes on the prize and keep plugging away. You are starting to feel some adrenaline again and you remember how good you felt. You are doing all the things you need to do in order to increase your business. You are SELLING, SCHEDULING , RECRUITING and you are on Fire! You are back baby! You are NOT getting off the ride this time. You are committed to seeing this through.
Things are really speeding up now as you add on new events and new team members. The speed is continuing to increase and you are feeling a bit queasy. Things are spinning faster than you want but you know what happened last time you got off. You almost walked out of the park and gave up. You are resolved to not to fall victim to that again.
You know you want it to slow down, but you are hanging in there, and don’t want to let anyone else down and don’t want anyone to else to see your “weakness”. Your team needs you, your clients need you, your goals need you and the pace picks up a little more. The momentum is increasing and you recognize you are approaching your limit. You want the ride to slow down but you can’t quite squeeze the words out of your mouth. “I can handle it!” You say to yourself over and over again. If it slows down it will be hard to get it going again. “Just keep focused, you can do it.”
Just as you think you can hang on for a little longer, the the floor starts to fall away under your feet and starts to flip sideways and you realize, this spinning apparatus you’ve been riding on is the Tilt-O-Whirl and if you don’t keep the pace moving now you will slide right out and crash to the ground. The pace continues faster and faster, until one day you are no longer able to hold on and… you lose it.
You lose your drive, your team, your family, your health, your sanity or whatever else you hold dear. It isn’t a pretty picture.
The ride comes to a screeching halt, with a jolt that makes you feel like you were just flung off a treadmill. Your head is dizzy, you feel dazed, confused and miserable. All you want to do is get out of here and find someplace to forget all about this crazy theme park. You are burned out, stressed out and ready to fall of the Entrepreneurial grid, never to be heard from again.
However, you pull yourself together enough to stumble your way over to the infirmary, and lay down while you regain your bearings. “Why did the ride keep speeding up? What is wrong with people?” and just then you look at a familiar sign. You’ve seen them all over the park but had never actually taken the time to read them. It said,
“For your convenience, all the rides in the Entrepreneurial Theme Park are voice activated. The rides will accelerate any time you say “Yes.”
And will decelerate any time you say “No.” Please ride responsibly.”
The key to navigating this Entrepreneurial Theme Park is recognizing that everything is Voice Activated.
Every time we say “Yes.” The ride moves faster and it is up to us to use the voice control to slow down or stop the ride as we feel comfortable. “No.” and “No, thank you.” are speed controls that will throttle the rides and modulate the correct speed for your business. It is up to you to implement them at the right times in order to keep your business at the consistent and steady pace you are comfortable with.
[Tweet “Don’t blame other people when you forgot the power of the word, “No””]
The moral of the story is that many entrepreneurs get stuck in the “Yes.” trap. They answer “Yes” to everything. Every opportunity and every responsibility. At first because it is exciting and exhilarating. Then because they think they can keep up the pace, until the day they realize they are under the wrong assumption that it will make them look weak if they say “No.”
If you want to have FUN in the Entrepreneurial Theme Park, remember to use the voice activated speed control and say “No.” so you don’t end up losing it and running out never to be seen or heard from again.
This was an excerpt out of Direct Selling 201: Advanced Sales & Leadership Skills . Join the Pre-Launch release party on Monday March 26, 2018 on Facebook & Periscope. You can pre-order your copy now at www.VickiFitch.com/201 and #JoinTheJourney as I publish #12Books12Months at www.VickiFitch.com/5K where you can order copies of Direct Selling 101 and the additional books that are coming out this year!
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Thank you for reading and sharing this Blog post so you can help all the Entrepreneur’s out there who are stuck in the Entrepreneurial Theme Park that need help learning how to #RockThatDream!
Until next time…