I used to joke that these business groups are what business owners join to feel like they have work. My wife has a weekly meeting and today I have an all day training, and we pay for it. The point of owning your own business is to not have meetings and trainings, but because we have no idea what we’re doing we pay to have meetings and trainings so we can gain a vague notion of what to do.
Whenever I talk about my business it sounds like I am putting myself down. We haven’t lasted ten years by simply stumbling around in the dark, but what we’ve done right I’m not sure I can define, because I have no idea what it is. I mostly think of the last five years when we’ve been raising children and playing with them most of the time. Like yesterday’s trip to Busch Gardens.
I don’t think of those first few years when we were working 14 hour days and busting our buts all over town to watch people’s pets ourselves. Building a reputation and a standard. All that work made us far richer in time than it didn’t money. We have staff that does the work now, and what we need to do can mostly be done on the run.
I don’t know if I miss those 15 to 20 visit days of rising at 4:30 and busting it all over town, with few breaks, and then falling into bed at 9:00, but sometimes I think I do. There is a purity to a busy day. To having only the work in front of you to do. Getting lost in the rhythm and floating through time. Getting job after job done and ticking off your day. It is good for a couple days but too long and it feels like life is passing you by.
Often it feels like we went from one extreme to the other. From those ultra busy days to too many days of play. Serious work requires serious attention and I never feel like I work enough. I also feel like the new clients have slowed down again. It makes since. Mid-September is a slower time. The end of August and first week in September is busy with back to school vacations and then post Labor Day retired peoples vacations. After that it is a lull until the end of October.
They talk about how people like to put their highlights online. I’m the opposite. I like to put my lowlights out there.
David Huzzard Writes 