The life of entrepreneurship is quite a personal choice. If you haven’t made the leap, be aware. If you have made the leap, you know what I’m talking about.

In corporate, I wore many hats. At one time I was doing operations, training and development, and public relations all at the same time. I was also working 100 hour work-weeks. I sometimes worked 21 days straight without “overtime” pay. I thought this was a lot. I thought I worked hard. That life seems like a vacation by comparison to the beginning stages of entrepreneurship.

As an entrepreneur, I’m the “go-to-guy” for EVERYTHING…
1. Quarterly Sales Taxes
2. Annual Bookkeeping, Accounting, & Tax Preparation
3. Back-end business operations
4. Product Development
5. Marketing
6. Business Planning & Development
7. Shipping & Customer Service
8. Quality Assurance
9. Training & Development
10. ALL OF THE ABOVE…

I went from wearing many hats to wearing every hat. I learned a whole new meaning to the word “BURNOUT” even though I love what I do.

Every entrepreneur has a learning curve that is steep. One person may be great at shameless self promotion while another person may be great at product development. We’re not all good at the same things. So I’ve learned some lessons in the last two years that I’d like to share.

1. While you have millions of ideas, keep sifting it down to 10 ideas then 7 ideas then 3 ideas until you narrow it down to ONE primary goal. THEN really focus your energy until you accomplish that one goal.

EXTRA HELPFUL HINT? Make sure the ONE primary goal you choose has the greatest income generating potential. Save your philanthropic goals for after hours, because the ONE thing that will keep you in business doing what you love, is having the INCOME associated with doing what you love.

2. Focus on one system at a time. Find a role model that most closely matches your ideal business model. Learn the system. Master the system. THEN move on to add more.

EXTRA HELPFUL HINT? Model someone successful. Get whatever version of the system you can afford (home study, teleseminar series, one-day seminar or intensive seminar). Don’t give up until you’ve stepped through the system at least once or twice with your audience. If you run into a problem, rather than going on to the next ‘bright shiny object’, hire a coach who works with the system to work with you one-on-one as you implement the fine details in the context of your own business model.

3. As a California Girl turned Oklahoma Girl turned California Girl, I learned that sometimes you have to take one step forward and two steps backward. It takes a lot of skills to really be a successful entrepreneur. This means you sometimes hit a wall and have to stretch past those moments in order to succeed. Common examples include: networking challenges, shameless self promotion challenges, and the challenge of intiating and closing $ALE$ can sometimes be a big wall]. Be persistent. If you stay the course, then you keep moving across the dance floor.

EXTRA HELPFUL HINT? Focus on the rhythm of your song and just keep two stepping. Keep stretching. Have a good cry [ladies] or pound the desk [gents]… Then pick yourself up and keep going. Problem solve. Don’t let anything stop you. Even major setbacks teach you important lessons. At some point, you will go the distance.

Remember there is a gestation period as we live into the life we’ve imagined… Bamboo takes 7 years to sprout. Just like bamboo, most of the super successful entrepreneurs I know took 7 years to sprout and figure out their “overnight success” magic formula… ;)Truth is even overnight successes took time to live into their seeming overnight success. So be gentle with yourself, be persistent by taking daily action, and remember to keep your eye on the prize with full faith it is already yours…

Live Into It… :)CC