It's harder than most people realise

Four Reasons

I wrote recently about the Four Reasons a Founder Led Business Does Not Grow, being:

1. The founder doesn't want the business to grow.
2. The founder doesn't believe it's possible for the business to grow.
3. The founder doesn't know how to grow the business.
4. The founder doesn't have the mental, emotional, psychological and spiritual strength to do what is needed for the business to grow.

Today I want to talk a bit more about the 4th one.?

Discovering Block 4

I had actually created this little model probably about five years ago, but then it only had three points – The first three. Being a strategist, this suited my message to market well. My focus was on founders who wanted to grow their businesses, but struggled due to not having a clear path of how to grow the business, which often also drove nagging doubts of whether it was even possible at all. Often the nagging doubts presented more as a rather convincing belief, in the form of a deep anxiety, that it is, in fact impossible for their business to grow.?

The fourth point came to me somewhere in the course of doing a turnaround for the business I was CEO of at the time. I have always been the kind of person who just got things done. It didn't matter how I felt (or how anyone else felt, for that matter), what mattered, was what needed to be done, and getting it done.?

However, somewhere in the journey I had been on at the time, I began to notice that there would be times when I would think about the business over the weekend, and come up with something that I knew would help us grow the business, if I implemented it. I would write it down, think through it, break it into a few steps, think about how I would communicate it, and be ready with this for our weekly exec meeting the coming Tuesday morning. I would walk into the meeting – no, sorry, it was Covid – I would click on "Join" and we would start the meeting. We would go through the normal matters of business, and somewhere in the course of the meeting would invariably be the perfect place where I should then raise this idea I had. Except that I would not raise it. The moment would pass, the meeting would go on, the meeting would close, and we would all go off and do another week's normal work.?

Growth takes extra lifting

The thing about these kinds of insights is that they were generally things we hadn't been doing up to that point. They were things that would take a special effort. They were things that would sometimes require some tough conversations. They were things that might not be immediately recognised and accepted by the team, so they might trigger some of my own insecurities if I raised them.?

Sometimes this would go on for weeks on end. Every week I would have the idea ready in my meeting preparation – But I would just not mention it.?

After noticing this happening more than once, I began to do some self-searching. I'm good at that. I'm a writer. So when things like this happen, I pull out a journal, and I begin to interrogate myself rather mercilessly. What I began to realise was that I had reached a point of emotional weariness where the strength needed to raise this idea, convince the team of it, take the potential hammering of having to deal with and work through resistance, and then drive the execution through to completion – that strength was just not there. The difficulties of the preceding few years had worn me down. I was able to deal with the normal day to day running of the business, and even run the business well. But those extra lifts I could just not muster the energy for.?

Somewhere through that process I revisited my little model, and I realised:

1. I wanted the business to grow.
2. I believed that it was possible for the business to grow.
3. I knew what needed to be done to grow the business.
4. BUT: I just did not have the emotional strength to do what had to be done.?

How many times had I missed this?

That then made me wonder how many times over the years had I facilitated strategy sessions where we came up with an amazing strategy; the leaders of a business would all show that they agreed with the strategy, understood the strategy, could see how to break it down further into concrete projects and actions – but deep inside, they knew that they didn't have the strength to execute.?

So I added that fourth block, and I have been blown away by how many times, since having added that block, and explaining this to entrepreneurs, have they been honest and vulnerable and open enough to admit that the fourth block was where they were at. Unfortunately I cannot do a pre- and post Covid analysis of this, but just listening to many of the conversations, it seems that many entrepreneurs really took a beating during Covid, and have just not been able to figure out how to recover from that. So they've kept on rowing, but with just enough strength to keep the boat from going over the waterfall.

Going to Mental Gym

Today I am in a place where I am doing better than I can remember ever doing. Many things have contributed to this, and I will over the next few weeks be writing about this some more, and point out some of the other things that have helped – but for today, I wanted to mention a program that takes about ten minutes a day, and has radically impacted my mental and emotional well-being, and that is Mygrow. (https://www.mygrow.me/)

Mygrow is a program stretching over many months, taking about ten minutes a day of your time, using short videos, and simple exercises that systematically help you wire your brain in ways that are emotionally and mentally stronger, more mature, more resilient, and makes you better at the way you interact with those around you. It is like a mental well-being gym. It doesn't just teach you what you need to do, but makes you do the exercises. It's like the difference between reading about the benefits of running every day, vs. actually putting on your shoes and going running every day.?

And just a disclaimer: The people are Mygrow are my friends. But they weren't my friends before. It is because I was so impressed with the program, that I have made the effort to get to know the people behind the business. They are an amazing team in some beautiful offices here in Cape Town. I had lunch with the whole team the other day. They are a shining example of being passionate about building business around solving some of the world's greatest problems.

So if you want to start working on that 4th block in your life, I suggest you head over to https://www.mygrow.me/, sign up, and start getting mentally and emotionally fit.?

To your success!

Ashton

At 5-2-50 we focus on helping Christian founders of small businesses that have at least 5 employees and have been running for at least 5 years, to achieve three goals:

1. Free the founder … from the day to day grind of your business, so that you can focus on what you most want to do next.
2. Grow your business … to 50 people or more, so that we can create good jobs, and eradicate poverty.
3. Reach at least ZAR 10 000 000 NPAT per year (± US600 000) … so that you can have the cash flow to fund what you most want to do next, or invest in the businesses of other entrepreneurs in our community.

If you would like to learn more about how we do this, and how you can participate in the 5-2-50 Movement – Sign up here:

https://5-2-50.ck.page/7d2661b1cd