Stepping down from my role in the church created a vacuum.
I needed purpose.
I needed something to throw myself into.
Years earlier, I had sold a Marketing & Strategy Deep Dive for my brother’s software development company.
One thing led to another…
– I helped him with his marketing copy, breaking into a new market
– I helped him design the sales process
– I helped him with his software design
– I helped him build out a team to handle sales, design, support, and implementation.
On one hand, it was new and exciting. He lived on the other side of the globe, and I’d often talk to him from 8pm to 12am.
Looking back, I loved the process of building the business. I couldn’t have cared less about software. In fact, I wrote software, built systems, and developed processes to distance myself from the day-to-day as much as possible.
When I needed purpose, I threw myself headlong into two things:
– trying to scale the software business
– trying to launch new offers
I’d spent enough time around business strategists that I knew I had major flaws in my business. But rather than embrace the truth, I simply worked harder and spent more money to try to fix it.
I jumped into a new, shiny coaching program by folks who’d managed to hit the market at the perfect time.
Meanwhile, I doubled down on ‘scale’:
– I hired a local team to grow a local team (then had to let them go soon after)
– I built out training modules for the design process
– I built out internal coaching calls for my team members
– I built out templates and SOPs to save even more time.
– I created a way to manage my inbox to keep me out of it.
The mystery? Things seemed work…sort of. And yet, every time I stepped away from the business, the more difficult it was to get back into it.
Looking back, I was avoiding the truth.
I was in a business, but I didn’t love it.
I’d self-appointed myself as the leader.
But I didn’t like where I was taking me.
Of course, all was not lost…
I discovered some things I was exceptionally good at…
And some things that I absolutely loved:
– I loved the process of building business
– I loved helping other people succeed
– I loved the process of building people & teams
– I loved streamlining processes to make things go smoothly
– I had a knack for finding constraint in the business
– I could tease apart a business, and within 1 day know within 80% accuracy of everything the software entailed
– I did great work on big, innovative projects
– And more
It took some time for me to hit the wall. But when I finally stopped hiring ‘sellers’ and started hiring ‘truth-tellers’, I was confronted my own demon:
I had built a business that people applauded.
I had built a business with strong skills I had.
I had built a business that I hadn’t been called to build.
Laying aside all ego of having a ‘real business’, I sold off part of my business to my brother.
On January 1, 2024, I woke up to team of:
– myself
– my part-time project manager
– my super-part-time personal assistant
As much as I could, I took the pressure off to figure anything out. I love consulting, and I continued to do consulting to pay the bills.
As I’ve allowed space to hear myself, I’ve come to realize something profound about my vision & desire for this next season of life…
Leave a Reply